Re: Maildir empty?

[Klaus Wacker <wacker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 11:44:25AM +0200, Oliver Kiddle wrote:
> Klaus Wacker wrote:
> > Dear zsh, is there a zsh-internal way to find out whether a maildir is
> > empty? Or more generally, whether a directory tree contains no
> > files? The following test ($i is the pathname of the maildir):
> > 
> >     if [[ $(echo $i/*/* | wc -w) -eq 0 ]]
> 
> Does this do what you want:
>       if [ -z $i/*/*([1]) ]
> 
> You need to use the single brackets so that the $i/*/* is treated as a
> filename expansion. The ([1]) part makes sure that only one file is
> expanded.
> 

Thank you, that works.

> Are you sure you didn't mean $i/**/*
> You need to use **/ to search a whole directory tree.
> 

For the general case I would probably need something like
`$i/**/*(.)'. However, for maildirs, `$i/*/*' is what I need. Each
maildir contains exactly three subdirectories named tmp, new and cur,
and they contain the mail files, one per message.

-- 
Klaus Wacker              wacker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Experimentelle Physik V   http://www.physik.uni-dortmund.de/~wacker
Universitaet Dortmund     Tel.: +49 231 755 3587
D-44221 Dortmund          Fax:  +49 231 755 4547