Finding the number of files in a folder

Question

How can I find a number of files in a folder, assign it to a variable, then echo that variable, all in one command line?

Any type of file? Or just regular files? Excluding directories? What about symlinks (to regular files or others). What about files (hard-)linked several times (or in other words, do you want to count files or directory entries)? What about the . and .. entries? Do you want them included? — Stéphane Chazelas, Mar 01 '16 at 16:20
@StéphaneChazelas jus regular files within a parent directory and its subfolders . — Warrior4just, Mar 01 '16 at 16:28

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 01 '16 at 15:42

2

linecount=$(find /folder/name/here/ -type f | wc -l); echo ${linecount}

is the simplest way of doing this. it counts every file in the folder and its sub-folders.

answered Mar 01 '16 at 15:42

MelBurslan

1

This isn't correct in the presence of files or directories with carriage returns in their filenames. – pericynthion Mar 01 '16 at 15:43
@pericynthion, carriage return wouldn't be a problem, linefeed aka newline would though. – Stéphane Chazelas Mar 01 '16 at 17:02

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 01 '16 at 16:14

What comes to my head without using semicolon to break and start a new command is to use Parameter substitution with Command substitution

$ echo ${filecount=$(find . -type f | wc -l)}

Then you can echo the variable again and you can confirm the result.

2 Answers2