How can I find and count number of files matching a given string?

Question

I want to find and count all the files on my system that begin with some string, say "foo", using only one line in bash.

I'm new to bash so I'd like to avoid scripting if possible - how can I do this using only simple bash commands and maybe piping in just one line?

So far I've been using find / -name foo*. This returns the list of files, but I don't know what to add to actually count the files.

score 18 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 22 '12 at 15:34

You can use

find / -type f -name 'foo*' | wc -l

Use the single-quotes to prevent the shell from expanding the asterisk.
Use -type f to include only files (not links or directories).
wc -l means "word count, lines only." Since find will list one file per line, this returns the number of files it found.

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 22 '12 at 15:34

4

find / -name foo* | wc -l should do it. Here is a link to man wc. wc -l counts the number of lines

answered Feb 22 '12 at 15:34

parapura rajkumar

2

need to quote or escape the `*` so that the shell doesn't expand it before find sees it. – glenn jackman Feb 22 '12 at 15:52

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 22 '12 at 15:34

0

You can pipe it into wc

find / -name foo * | wc -l

answered Feb 22 '12 at 15:34

Bernhard

3 Answers3