How to check if a directory is empty in Linux

Linux method to check whether the directory is empty: 1. Enter the Linux terminal; 2. Execute "res=`ls -A $dir` if [ -z $res ]; then echo "$dir .. ."else echo "$dir ..."fi" method can be used to determine whether the directory is empty.

#The operating environment of this tutorial: linux5.9.8 system, Dell G3 computer.

How to check if a directory is empty in Linux?

How to determine if there is no content in the directory?

First you need to learn 2 commands.

ls -a: Abbreviation of –all, will display all files and directories, including hidden files (files starting with .) and 2 special directories: “.” (current directory) and “…” (Parent directory);

ls -A: Abbreviation of –almost-all, will display all files and most directories, including hidden files, but not including 2 special directories: "." (currently directory) and "..." (parent directory);

In general, the difference between ls -a and ls -A is whether to display two special directories: "." (current directory) and " …” (parent directory).

With the previous preparation, then judging whether a directory is an empty directory can be:

#!/bin/bash

dir=/home/work/test
res=`ls -A $dir`
if [ -z $res ];then
  echo "$dir 为空目录.................."
else
  echo "$dir 不为空...................."
fi

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