How do I check if a directory has child directories?

Question

Using bash, how do I write an if statement that checks if a certain directory, stored in the a script variable named "$DIR", contains child directories that are not "." or ".."?

Thanks, - Dave

Answer 1

As the comments have pointed out, things have changed in the last 9 years! The dot dirs are no longer returned as part of find and instead the directory specified in the find command is.

So, if you want to stay with this approach:

#!/bin/bash
subdircount=$(find /tmp/test -maxdepth 1 -type d | wc -l)

if [[ "$subdircount" -eq 1 ]]
then
    echo "none of interest"
else
    echo "something is in there"
fi

(originally accepted answer from 2011)

#!/usr/bin/bash
subdircount=`find /d/temp/ -maxdepth 1 -type d | wc -l`

if [ $subdircount -eq 2 ]
then
    echo "none of interest"
else
    echo "something is in there"
fi

Answer 2

Here's a more minimalist solution that will perform the test in a single line..

ls $DIR/*/ >/dev/null 2>&1 ; 

if [ $? == 0 ]; 
then 
  echo Subdirs
else 
  echo No-subdirs
fi

By putting / after the * wildcard you select only directories, so if there is no directories then ls returns error-status 2 and prints the message ls: cannot access <dir>/*/: No such file or directory. The 2>&1 captures stderr and pipes it into stdout and then the whole lot gets piped to null (which gets rid of the regular ls output too, when there is files).