How do I count the number of files in all subdirectories and add the counts together

Question

I am trying to count the number of file in each directory/subdirectory, add them together and get a total which I can then compare to another directory:

#!/bin/bash

echo "Checking directories for proper extensions"

for LOOP in 1 2 3 4; 
do
    if [[ $LOOP -eq 1 ]]; then
        find ./content/documents -type f ! \( -name \*.txt -o -name \*.doc -o -name \*.docx \)
        count1=$(find ./content/documenets -type f) | wc -l
        #count number of files in directory and add to counter
    elif [[ $LOOP -eq 2 ]]; then
        find ./content/media -type f ! -name \*.gif 
        count2=$(find ./content/media -type f) | wc -l
        #count number of files in directory and add to counter
    elif [[ $LOOP -eq 3 ]]; then
        find ./content/pictures -type f ! \( -name \*.jpg -o -name \*.jpeg \) 
        count3=$(find ./content/pictures -type f) | wc -l
        #count number of files in directory and add to counter
    else
        count4=$(find /home/dlett/content/other -type f) | wc -l
        #count number of files in directory and add to counter
    fi

    #list the files in each subdirectory in catalog and put into an array
    #count the number of items in the array
    #compare number of item in each array
    #if the number of item in each array doesn't equal 
        #then print and error message
    content_Count=$(( count1+count2+count3+count4 ))
    echo $content_Count
done

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

Your question doesn't say where the previous known-good values come from. I'm going to assume you have a parallel tree to the content tree called ../oldcontent. Adjust to suit:

#!/bin/bash

echo "Checking directories for proper extensions"

for d in documents media pictures other
do
    nfc=$(find content/$d -type f | wc -l)
    ofc=$(find ../oldcontent/$d -type f | wc -l)
    if [ $nfc -eq $ofc ]
    then
         echo The "$d" directory has as many files as before.
    elif [ $nfc -lt $ofc ]
    then
         echo There are fewer files in the content directory than before.
    else
         echo There are more files in the content directory than before.
    fi
done

This code is a lot shorter because it doesn't try to give a different find command on each loop. If you really need that, you could use an associative array to pair directory names and find arguments:

declare -A dirs=(
    [documents]="-name \*.txt -o -name \*.doc -o -name \*.docx" 
    [media]="-name \*.gif"
    [pictures]="-name \*.jpg -o -name \*.jpeg"
    [other]=""
)

Then the for loop becomes:

for d in "${!dirs[@]}"
do
    nfc=$(find content/$d -type f ${dirs[$d]} | wc -l)
    ofc=$(find ../oldcontent/$d -type f ${dirs[$d]} | wc -l)

...

That only works in Bash 4 and up, though. There's a less powerful associative array mechanism in Bash 3, but it's pretty much broken by design. If you don't have Bash 4 on hand, I'd encourage you to switch to something like Perl, Python or Ruby rather than try to arm-twist Bash 3 associative arrays into service for something like this.

Beware that this does not tell you that the content tree contains the same files as ../oldcontent, only that each subdirectory has the same number of files. If you're trying to detect changes to files within each tree, you'll need to use rsync or my "MD5 a directory" solution here on Unix.SE.

How do I count the number of files in all subdirectories and add the counts together

1 Answers1