number of files in a directory 1

[unixwhoopie]

How do I get the number of files in a directory? I want to delete files in a directory but before that I need to make sure there are files.

Thanks

 

[bi]

ls | wc -l

 

[pmurray99]

If you want to eliminate directories from the count.


ls -al |grep ^[^d] | wc -l

 

[Dorga]

The most correct solution for you is,

find /your/path -type f | wc -l

find will use the -type option and display only files, no dirs, or other odd/special items, then and only then can you get an accurate count of files.. ls -la and other options will display "other" items in the output..