Re: a script to remove empty directories

[Bruce Ingalls <bingalls at nj dot rr dot com>]

Andreas Seidl wrote:

> Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Andreas Seidl wrote:
> >
> > > Hmm, wouldn't the generic build script be the place to add 
> > > functionality
> > > to remove empty directories? Doing it by hand adds work, and even 
> > > worse,
> > > is a possible source for bugs, as a newer release might have actually
> > > files in directories which were empty before, and if overlooked, they
> > > could get removed.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Andreas,
> >
> > Feel free to send a patch for this.
> >     Igor
>
>
>
> I have written the following script, which is as good as I can do at 
> the moment.
>
> ----- begin -----
> #!/usr/bin/bash
> # rmed -- remove empty directories recursively
> # usage: rmed [DIR] where DIR is an optional argument, the directory
> #   where to start examining.
> # limitations:
> #   - spaces in file or direcory names



Hm. I'm used to Linux compatible systems treating `test -z` as checking 
files/dirs for zero length, not strings.
I'm not sure why the following doesn't work:
#!/bin/bash
for dir in **/*; do if [ -d $dir -a ! -s $dir ];then echo $dir; fi; done
for dir in **/.*; do if [ -d $dir -a ! -s $dir ];then echo $dir; fi; done

Maybe zsh works better than bash here?

Anyhow, here is an elegant, working solution. If no optional dir is 
passed, then the current dir is checked recursively, and empty 
subdirectories are passed.

#!/bin/bash
ROOT=${1:-.}
if [ ! -d $ROOT ];then ROOT=.;fi
find $ROOT -type d -empty|xargs rmdir -

Here is a shortcoming:
1) Makes only one pass, so if a directory only contains empty 
subdirectories, that new, empty parent remains.
You could try saving the dirnames/parents of deleted directories into a 
list, or recursively attempt to rmed them.