Hey there! Today, we're diving into a set of advanced Linux commands that can be incredibly useful for managing and analyzing your file system. Whether you're looking to count files, directories, or even track specific user-created files, these commands will help you do it efficiently. In this tutorial, we'll explore how to combine multiple commands like ls, egrep, wc, and find to perform more complex tasks.
To demonstrate, I've created a small test environment with 7 files and 2 folders, including 5 regular files and 2 hidden files. The tree command gives a clear view of the structure:
/opt ├── magi │ └── 2g │ ├── test5.txt │ └── .test6.txt ├── test1.txt ├── test2.txt ├── test3.txt ├── .test4.txt └── test.txt 2 directories, 7 files
Now let's look at some practical examples of how to count files and directories using different commands.
Example 1: Count regular files in the current directory (excluding hidden files)
# ls -l . | egrep -c '^-'
Output: 4
Explanation: This command lists all non-hidden files by checking lines that start with a hyphen (-), which indicates a regular file in long listing format.
Example 2: Count all files including hidden ones
# ls -la . | egrep -c '^-'
Output: 5
This includes hidden files because ls -la shows all entries.
Example 3: Count total files and directories in the current directory
# ls -l | wc -l
Output: 5
The wc -l command counts the number of lines, which corresponds to the number of entries listed by ls -l.
Example 4: Count all files and directories including hidden ones
# ls -la | wc -l
Output: 8
This time, it includes hidden files and directories as well.
Example 5: Recursively count all files, including hidden ones
# find . -type f | wc -l
Output: 7
The find command searches recursively and filters only regular files.
Example 6: Use tree to count files and directories (excluding hidden files)
# tree | tail -1
Output: 2 directories, 5 files
Example 7: Include hidden files in the tree output
# tree -a | tail -1
Output: 2 directories, 7 files
Example 8: Count directories recursively
# find . -type d | wc -l
Output: 3
Example 9: Count files by extension (e.g., .txt)
# find . -name "*.txt" | wc -l
Output: 7
Example 10: Count all files using echo and wc
# echo *.* | wc
Output: 1 4 39
The second number represents the number of files in the current directory.
Example 11: Count directories using echo and wc
# echo */ | wc
Output: 1 1 6
The second number is the number of directories.
Example 12: Count all files and directories
# echo * | wc
Output: 1 5 1544
Here, the second number is the total number of items (files and directories).
Example 13: Count all files in the entire system
# find / -type f | wc -l
Output: 69769
Example 14: Count all directories in the entire system
# find / -type d | wc -l
Output: 8819
Example 15: Count all types of files, directories, links, etc., across the system
# find / -type d -exec echo dirs \; -o -type l -exec echo symlinks \; -o -type f -links +1 -exec echo hardlinks \; -o -type f -exec echo files \; | sort | uniq -c
Output:
8779 dirs 69343 files 20 hardlinks 11646 symlinks
This command categorizes and counts various types of system elements efficiently.
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