CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashshell
DeadBrain
DeadBrain

Reputation: 21

How to check if symlink points to an empty folder

I am currently studying shell scripting on Linux devices during one of my classes and I have managed to get an extra task that so far exceeds my skills.

I was tasked to write a shell script that finds symlinks that point to empty folders. Now the first two parts are easy - I know how to use the find command with tests like -type l and -xtype d. The problem comes from checking if the folder itself is empty. I've asked my teacher but all I've got were cryptic hints about xargs or exec arguments which I'm actually not allowed to use yet according to the instruction. My best bet so far is to throw the results of the find into a for loop and test the path I get from the link in each loop, but that doesn't seem to work. So far my code looks like this:

for var in $`find $1/* -type l -xtype d -print`
do
  if [ $`readlink -f $var` -empty ]
  then
    echo $`readlink -f $var`
  fi
done

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Upvotes: 2

Views: 566

Answers (1)

Josh Lee
Josh Lee

Reputation: 177520

Are you looking for -empty option to find?

$ mkdir empty_folder
$ ln -s empty_folder/ symlink
$ find symlink -type d -empty
symlink

This could also be done with filename expansion.

$ shopt -s dotglob failglob
$ true symlink/*
bash: no match: symlink/*

Upvotes: 2

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