ls command for listing the number of files

jimmyc · #1 (**permalink**) 03-23-2007

I've searched the man page for an option for the ls command to print the number of files in a directory. I'm moving files and folders around and thought a count of files would be a quick way to determine if I was missed one somewhere. Some "unix's" shells do this I think... maybe linux...

Anybody know how to do this real quick

System is: SunOS 5.10 Generic sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-5_10 KSH

I did this but is comes back with byte count rather than a file count.
ls -l |wc

Thanks All

)

jim mcnamara · #2 (**permalink**) 03-23-2007

ls -l | wc -l

jimmyc · #3 (**permalink**) 03-23-2007

Dang.... I knew I was close...

Thx Jim

ghostdog74 · #4 (**permalink**) 03-23-2007

one little minor problem, at least what i have encountered, is that ls -l list out the files, including the "total" line on the very first line. wc -l will count that line too. So its just sufficient to exclude the switch , or use ls -1 instead.

cfajohnson · #5 (**permalink**) 03-24-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimmyc

I've searched the man page for an option for the ls command to print the number of files in a directory. I'm moving files and folders around and thought a count of files would be a quick way to determine if I was missed one somewhere. Some "unix's" shells do this I think... maybe linux...

Anybody know how to do this real quick

System is: SunOS 5.10 Generic sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-5_10 KSH

I did this but is comes back with byte count rather than a file count.
ls -l |wc

You can add the -l option to wc, or you can do it in the shell itself, which will be much faster:
Code:
set -- *
echo $#

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