Question

How does one test for the existence of files in a directory using bash?

if ... ; then
   echo 'Found some!'
fi

To be clear, I don’t want to test for the existence of a specific file. I would like to test if a specific directory contains any files.

---

I went with:

(
   shopt -s dotglob nullglob
   existing_files=( ./* )
   if [[ ${#existing_files[@]} -gt 0 ]] ; then
      some_command "${existing_files[@]}"
   fi
)

Using the array avoids race conditions from reading the file list twice.

Answer 1

I typically just use a cheap ls -A to see if there’s a response.

Pseudo-maybe-correct-syntax-example-ahoy:

if [[ $(ls -A my_directory_path_variable ) ]] then....

edit, this will work:

myDir=(./*) if [ ${#myDir[@]} -gt 1 ]; then echo "there's something down here"; fi