On Wed, Oct 03, 2018 at 12:01:02PM +0000, Virgo Pärna wrote: > On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 09:14:00 -0400, Greg Wooledge <wool...@eeg.ccf.org> wrote: > > But also note that using ls -l gives a completely wrong answer. > > > > wooledg:~$ mkdir /tmp/x && cd "$_" > > wooledg:/tmp/x$ touch $'this\nis\none\nfile' > > wooledg:/tmp/x$ ls -l | wc -l > > 5 > > > > What about 'ls -1b | wc -l'?
Not portable, but if you're willing to write scripts that only work with GNU coreutils installed, maybe an option. You'd probably want to add -A as well. How about just using one of the bash builtin methods that are presented on <https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/004>? Not only are they portable (so long as bash is installed), but they don't require forking external commands like ls(1) and wc(1) in the first place.
