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Linux / UNIX: Check If File Is Empty Or Not Using Shell Script
Posted By nixCraft <webmaster@[Link]> On July 3, 2009 @ 1:09 pm [ 4 Comments ]
How do I check if file is empty or not using bash or ksh shell script under UNIX / Linux / OS X / BSD operating systems? You can use the find command as follows. The -s option to the test builtin check to see if FILE exists and has a size greater than zero. It returns true and false values to indicate that file is empty or has some data. touch /tmp/file1 ls -l /tmp/file1 find /tmp -empty -name file1 Sample outputs: /tmp/file1 Now create another file with some data in it: echo "data" > /tmp/file2 ls -l /tmp/file2 find /tmp -empty -name file2 You should not see any output.
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Shell -s option
However, use can pass -s option as follows in script or shell prompt: touch /tmp/f1 echo "data" >/tmp/f2 ls -l /tmp/f {1,2} [ -s /tmp/f1 ] echo $? Sample outputs: 1 The non zero output indicate that file is empty. [ -s /tmp/f2 ] echo $? Sample outputs: 0 The zero output indicate that file is not empty. So you can write a shell script as follows:
Shell Script To Check If File Is Empty OR Not
#!/bin/bash _file="$1"
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[ $# -eq 0 ] && { echo "Usage: $0 filename"; exit 1; } [ ! -f "$_file" ] && { echo "Error: $0 file not found."; exit 2; } if [ -s "$_file" ] then echo "$_file has some data." # do something as file has data else echo "$_file is empty." # do something as file is empty fi Run it as follows: chmod +x [Link] ./[Link] /etc/[Link] Sample outputs: /etc/[Link] has some data. Run it on an empty file: touch /tmp/[Link] ./[Link] /tmp/[Link] Sample outputs: [Link] is empty.
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