To test whether a directory (or “folder”) is empty, the code
if exist "%dir%\*.*" ( echo %dir% is non-empty ) else ( echo %dir% is empty )
does not work; it always reports “non-empty”.
The trick
( dir /b /a "%dir%" | findstr . ) > nul && ( echo %dir% non-empty ) || ( echo %dir% empty )
using conditional execution, however, does work.
Here is an example file using this trick in a separate “function”:
@echo off
goto :main
REM *** === Function "Test" ===================================================
:test
if not "%1" == "" (
if exist "%1" (
( dir /b /a "%1" | findstr . ) > nul && (
echo %1 non-empty
) || (
echo %1 empty
)
) else (
echo %1 missing
)
) else (
echo error: no parameter
)
goto :EOF
REM *** === Main ==============================================================
:main
call :test path\to\some\directory
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Thursday, 16 May 2013 at 10:55 |
How to check elegantly with a batch script wether a Folder is absolute empty (no files, no subfolders) and then delete it
Hi,
Check this out. To me it’s more elegant because it does not contain quite so complicated commands. It took me a while to come up with that.
REM ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
REM ////////////// ITERATE DIRECTORY FOR EMPTY ////////////////////////////////
REM ////////////// EMPTY SUBDIRECTORIES ////////////////////////////////
REM ////////////// AND DELETE THEM ///////////////////////////////////
REM ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
REM Batch procedure that checks a directory structure for empty folders ^(no files, no subdirs^)
REM And then works on the empty ones, in this case deletes them
REM Working on the empty ones proved to be more difficult than working on the ones with data.
REM
REM Explanations
REM am_DirectoryWhereToDeleteEmptyDirs will be iterated including all its Subdirectories
REM The first dir command within the for checks whether ^%^%i contains files
REM If it doesn’t then the second dir command checks whether ^%^%i contains subfolders
REM Even though, a simple rd command would not delete a directory with subfolders,
REM So this really is a matter of elegance.
REM A command after a double pipe will only be executed if the preceding command is considered to have failed
REM The parameters ^/s ^/b ^/ad only show a directory that has been found, and it is depicted by its full name only.
REM The good news here is that the dot and double dot for current and parent directory will be skipped.
REM Find is now told to search for anything it is being passed, but an empty string.
REM Since I don’t need any output I first limit it to a numeral and then I dump it into nirvana.
REM The good thing is if nothing has been found then the command is regarded as having failed.
REM So now I know if it has failed the directory currently being worked on is empty.
REM And then I happily delete it.
REM TEEME and Log are special Variables for logging. You don’t have to use them.
REM I have looked around and all I googled was unsatisfactory.
REM Either too complicated or too much programming or what have you.
REM Other advantages of this solution is that is spares you of catching errorlevels and of gotos
REM So I share this with the www community.
REM Cheers, Andi.
for /f “delims=” %%i in (‘dir %am_DirectoryWhereToDeleteEmptyDirs% /s/b/ad ^| sort /r’) do (
:: Testing whether %%i is empty and can be deleted %TEEME%
dir /B /A:-D %%i >nul 2>&1 || (
echo %%i contains no files %TEEME%
dir %%i /s /b /ad |find /v “” /C >nul 2>&1|| (
echo Folder %%i contains no Subfolders either and will be deleted now ^.^.^. %TEEME%
rd “%%i” >>%LOG% 2>>&1
if {%TRACE%}=={echo} echo. %TEEME%
)
)
)