Error in script

Question

I am new to bash and scripting and I am trying to create a simple script but for some reason it won't let me run this:

fileCount= ls -1 | wc -l

#echo $fileCount

for (( i=0; i<$fileCount; ++i )) ; do
 echo item: $i
done

Whenever I try to run this it just gives me an error message saying it expected an operand. I am really confused on the error here and any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

To get your code running with minimal change, replace:

fileCount= ls -1 | wc -l

With:

fileCount=$(ls -1 | wc -l)

$(...) is called command substitution. It is what you use when you want capture the output of a command in a variable.

It is very important that there be no spaces on either side of the equal sign.

Improvements

• To speed up the result, use the -U option to turn off sorting.

• To prevent any attempt to display special characters, use -q.

Thus:

fileCount=$(ls -1Uq | wc -l)

Lastly, when ls is writing to something other than a terminal, such as, in this command, a pipeline, it prints one file name per line. This makes -1 optional.

Answer 2

you missed to assign the output of wc -l to your variable. Try this:

fileCount=$(ls | wc -l)

(option "-1" is not needed, because ls writes one file per line if its stdout is not a terminal)