Here I got result of 1 instead two files that should have been found:
mkdir -p mytestdir001
mkdir -p mytestdir002
LIST=`find -maxdepth 1 -name "mytestdir???"`
echo ${#LIST[@]}
5 Answers
Make the LIST an array rather than a variable:
LIST=( `find -maxdepth 1 -name "mytestdir???"` )
Also start using $() instead of older ``:
LIST=( $(find -maxdepth 1 -name "mytestdir???") )
Comments
you could use wordcount ( wc ) :
find -maxdepth 1 -name "mytestdir???" | wc
this will give you output like this:
2 2 30
these are:
- number of lines
- number of words
- number of characters
use wc -l to get only the number of lines.
Comments
Why don't you use:
find -maxdepth 1 -name "mytestdir???" | wc
if your real goal is to know the number?
Comments
You could pipe the output of the find into a wc and count the lines, given each file is represented by a distinct line - which in my experience is the case with find.
example
[user@machine find]# find . -name "*.file"
./3.file
./1.file
./2.file
[user@machine find]# find . -name "*.file" | wc -l
3
Comments
ls | awk '/^mytestdir/{a++}END{print a}' # 2
Breakdown:
ls | awk '
# Match every folder / file starting with mytestdir
/^mytestdir/{a++}
# Print counted matches
END{print a}' # 2
find . -maxdepth ...