[ALUG] How to check a directory is empty (probably in bash)?

[Brett Parker]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 11:42:10AM +0000, Eur Ing Chris Green wrote:
> What's the simplest (and/or most concise) way to check for an empty
> directory?
>             
> I can't just do a rmdir as I need to check three directories are empty
> before I can do anything drastic (like removing the directory).  Not
> to mention that for one application of this I don't want to remove the
> empty directory anyway.
> 
> As you've probably guessed this is to check if a maildir mailbox is
> empty - to do this you need to check if all three subdirectories of
> the maildir are empty.

Well, I'd do something like:
        function directory_empty() {
                filecount=$(ls -lAU "$1" | sed '1{s/total //; p}; 1,$d;')
                if [[ $filecount -gt 0 ]]; then
                        return 1
                else
                        return 0
                fi
        }

Then you can use it as such:
        if (directory_empty $directory); then
                echo "It's empty."
        fi

OK - it's not the prettiest code in the world, but it *should* do what
you need!

Cheers,
-- 
Brett Parker