GNU bug report logs - #12675
find RFE test verb "-inodes"

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Linda Walsh <coreutils <at> tlinx.org>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: find RFE test verb "-inodes"
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2012 09:41:17 -0700

A useful thing to be a test on the number of non-structural entries in a 
directory.

By non structural, it would work like ls -A, and not include entries 
that are
part of the directory structure like "." and ".." -- with the idea of being
able to quickly determine if a directory is empty.

Maybe 'inodes' with standard +/- adjectives

So "find . -type d -inodes 0" would find all the empty dirs.

Unless, of course this is already in there and I've missed it... but
didn't see anything that would provide this w/o calling an external func
on each dir...which really slows things down...

Message #8 received at 12675 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Bob Proulx <bob <at> proulx.com>
To: Linda Walsh <coreutils <at> tlinx.org>
Cc: 12675 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#12675: find RFE test verb "-inodes"
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:17:21 -0600

Linda Walsh wrote:
> A useful thing to be a test on the number of non-structural entries
> in a directory.
> 
> By non structural, it would work like ls -A, and not include entries
> that are part of the directory structure like "." and ".." -- with
> the idea of being able to quickly determine if a directory is empty.
> 
> Maybe 'inodes' with standard +/- adjectives
> 
> So "find . -type d -inodes 0" would find all the empty dirs.
> 
> Unless, of course this is already in there and I've missed it... but
> didn't see anything that would provide this w/o calling an external func
> on each dir...which really slows things down...

Do you mean something like find -empty?

 -- Test: -empty
     True if the file is empty and is either a regular file or a
     directory.  This might help determine good candidates for
     deletion.  This test is useful with `-depth' (*note Directories::)
     and `-delete' (*note Single File::).

Example:

  $ find . -empty

Bob

Message #15 received at 12675-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eric Blake <eblake <at> redhat.com>
To: Linda Walsh <coreutils <at> tlinx.org>
Cc: 12675-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#12675: find RFE test verb "-inodes"
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:23:03 -0600

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

tag 12675 notabug
thanks

On 10/18/2012 10:41 AM, Linda Walsh wrote:
> A useful thing to be a test on the number of non-structural entries in a
> directory.
> 
> By non structural, it would work like ls -A, and not include entries
> that are
> part of the directory structure like "." and ".." -- with the idea of being
> able to quickly determine if a directory is empty.

So which do you really want - to know how many directory entries exist,
or to just know if a directory is (non-)empty?  The former would be a
new feature, while the latter already exists as a GNU find extension.

> 
> Maybe 'inodes' with standard +/- adjectives
> 
> So "find . -type d -inodes 0" would find all the empty dirs.
> 
> Unless, of course this is already in there and I've missed it... but
> didn't see anything that would provide this w/o calling an external func
> on each dir...which really slows things down...

Sorry, but you've reached the wrong list.  GNU coreutils does not
maintain find(1); for that, you'd need to write to the findutils list.
But while you are correct that POSIX does not provide this capability,
GNU find already does what you want:

find -type d -empty

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake <at> redhat.com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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Message #18 received at 12675 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Linda Walsh <coreutils <at> tlinx.org>
To: 12675 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#12675: closed (Re: bug#12675: find RFE test verb "-inodes")
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2012 10:55:22 -0700

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

>
> Subject:
> Re: bug#12675: find RFE test verb "-inodes"
> From:
> Eric Blake <eblake <at> redhat.com>
> Date:
> Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:23:03 -0600
> To:
> Linda Walsh <coreutils <at> tlinx.org>
>
> To:
> Linda Walsh <coreutils <at> tlinx.org>
> CC:
> 12675-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
>
>
> tag 12675 notabug
> thanks
>
>   
>> on each dir...which really slows things down...
>>     
> Sorry, but you've reached the wrong list.  GNU coreutils does not
> maintain find(1); for that, you'd need to write to the findutils list.
> But while you are correct that POSIX does not provide this capability,
> GNU find already does what you want:
>
> find -type d -empty
>
>   
Re: list: oops!   Forgot!
Re: -empty: That'll work for my current need,

Thanks!

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