Question

13

How to check if a folder is empty or not and use its content in an if-then-else-statement?

rated 0 times [ 13] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 8089 / 2 Years ago, tue, may 10, 2022, 8:12:07

I need to check if a folder is empty or not and according to the output I need to run some other commands. I'm working on Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS.

My bash script:

if [ "$(ls -A /mnt/mamdrive/"As Metadata"/)" ] || ["$(ls -A /mnt/mamdrive/"As Video"/)"  ]; then

    echo "copy file"

else

    echo "dont copy"

fi

The condition works sometimes, but sometimes it doesn't and it's hard to reproduce it. Is there any other way to check if the directory is empty and do some action accordingly?

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1 Year ago

answered 2 Years ago uquelighted · Accepted Answer

I'd suggest something that doesn't rely on the string output of ls - for example, testing if there are any results of a glob expansion:

#!/bin/bash



shopt -s nullglob       # don't return literal glob if matching fails

shopt -s dotglob        # make * match "almost all" like ls -A



set -- /mnt/mamdrive/"As Metadata"/*



if (( $# > 0 )); then

  echo "not empty"

else

  echo "empty"

fi

If you want to test whether two directories are both empty, you can simply glob both of them:

set -- /mnt/mamdrive/"As Metadata"/* /mnt/mamdrive/"As Video"/*