Iterating over file (and directory) names with bash

Question

I was trying to write a bash script for counting the number of files and the number of directories of the local directory. This was my first try:

#!/bin/bash
fil         


        

Answer 1

I think that Jonathan Leffler's answer is exactly what you need.

An alternative that shows the power of bash arrays and eliminates the need for loops:

shopt -s nullglob
dirs=(*/)
ndir="${#dirs[@]}"
files=(*)
nfile=$(( "${#files[@]}" - ndir))
echo "files=$nfile, directories=$ndir"

This works as follows:

• dirs=(*/) creates an array of the names of the directories.

• ndir="${#dirs[@]}" counts the number of directories.

• files=(*) creates an array of the names of all files and directories.

• nfile=$(( "${#files[@]}" - ndir)) computes the number of files by taking the number of elements of files and subtracting from that the number of directories.

• echo "files=$nfile, directories=$ndir" prints out the results.

This will only work in a shell, like bash, that supports arrays. On many systems, sh is dash which does not support arrays. So, use bash script when executing this script.