a script to remove empty directories

[Andreas Seidl]

Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Andreas Seidl wrote:
>>Hmm, wouldn't the generic build script be the place to add functionality
>>to remove empty directories? Doing it by hand adds work, and even worse,
>>is a possible source for bugs, as a newer release might have actually
>>files in directories which were empty before, and if overlooked, they
>>could get removed.
> 
> 
> Andreas,
> 
> Feel free to send a patch for this. ;-)
> 	Igor

I have written the following script, which is as good as I can do at the 
moment.

----- begin -----
#!/usr/bin/bash
# rmed -- remove empty directories recursively
# usage: rmed [DIR] where DIR is an optional argument, the directory
#   where to start examining.
# limitations:
#   - spaces in file or direcory names
#   - currently still prints instead of removing (remove # in line 19)
if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
   basedir="."
else
   basedir=$1
fi
cd $basedir
dirs=`\ls -F | grep '/' | sed sx/xx`
for dir in $dirs ; do
    #echo "      examining $dir"
   if [ -z "`\ls $dir`" ] ; then
     echo "empty: `pwd`/$dir"
     #rmdir $dir
   else
     rmed $dir
   fi
done
cd -
----- end -----