UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Code:

count=0; for filename in `find . ! -iname '*.mp3' -type f` do count=`expr $count + 1`; done; echo $count;

Well I guess it's pretty much clear what I'm trying to do with this command, trying to count all the files matching the criteria specified by the find command above.
So the questions is how to I input find for the argument list? I'm pretty sure the problem is there.

Code:

arturas@Universe:~$ count=0; for filename in `find . ! -iname '*.mp3' -type f` do count=`expr $count + 1`; done; echo $count; 
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `done'

---------- Post updated at 03:35 PM ---------- Previous update was at 03:34 PM ----------

I'd be also grateful if somebody taught me an easier way to count the number of found files too.

Now that's an excellent answer. Thanks, and thanks for the wc -l, been searching for something like that, very useful. As for my command, thank you for fixing it to make it work:

Code:

count=0; for filename in `find . ! -iname '*.mp3' -type f`; do count=`expr $count + 1`; done; echo $count;

The command works, however the results I get are not what I expect, I get way more results than I would get normally or with the wc command. The wc counts well. So where could the problem be? I wonder if I'm using this correctly if my for cycle goes more times than the amount of results from the find command.

Are there perhaps spaces in the file names? If so, for example, "Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms.mp3" would count for 6, not just 1, as the shell breaks on each whitespace. You'd have to surround the backticks with double quotes, or use a read loop instead.