I am trying to output the number of directories in a given path on a SINGLE line. My desire is to output this:
X-many directories
Currently, with my bash sript, I get this:
X-many
directories
Here's my code:
ARGUMENT=$1
ls -l $ARGUMENT | egrep -c '^drwx'; echo -n "directories"
How can I fix my output? Thanks
I suggest
echo "$(ls -l "$ARGUMENT" | egrep -c '^drwx') directories"
This uses the shell's feature of final newline removal for command substitution.
Do not pipe to ls output and count directories as you can get wrong results if special characters have been used in file/directory names.
To count directories use:
shopt -s nullglob
arr=( "$ARGUMENT"/*/ )
echo "${#arr[@]} directories"
/ at the end of glob will make sure to match only directories in "$ARGUMENT" path.shopt -s nullglob is to make sure to return empty results if glob pattern fails (no directory in given argument).
shopt not found in BASH?ls command.as alternative solution
$ bc <<< "$(find /etc -maxdepth 1 -type d | wc -l)-1"
116
another one
$ count=0; while read curr_line; do count=$((count+1)); done < <(ls -l ~/etc | grep ^d); echo ${count}
116
Would work correctly with spaces in the folder name
$ ls -la
total 20
drwxrwxr-x 5 alex alex 4096 Jun 30 18:40 .
drwxr-xr-x 11 alex alex 4096 Jun 30 16:41 ..
drwxrwxr-x 2 alex alex 4096 Jun 30 16:43 asdasd
drwxrwxr-x 2 alex alex 4096 Jun 30 16:43 dfgerte
drwxrwxr-x 2 alex alex 4096 Jun 30 16:43 somefoler with_space
$ count=0; while read curr_line; do count=$((count+1)); done < <(ls -l ./ | grep ^d); echo ${count}
3
