Golang : Determine if directory is empty with os.File.Readdir() function
Problem :
You are traversing a directory tree with filepath.Walk()
function and you need to find out if a directory is empty or not.
Solution :
Instead of grabbing the entire directory content only to find out that it is empty, check if the directory is empty by reading in 1 file. Yup, just 1 file with the os.Readdir()
function and if the error returned is EOF(end of file), that means .... the directory is empty.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"io"
"os"
)
func IsDirEmpty(name string) (bool, error) {
f, err := os.Open(name)
if err != nil {
return false, err
}
defer f.Close()
// read in ONLY one file
_, err = f.Readdir(1)
// and if the file is EOF... well, the dir is empty.
if err == io.EOF {
return true, nil
}
return false, err
}
func main() {
ok, err := IsDirEmpty("./")
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
}
fmt.Println("Current directory is empty? : ", ok)
ok, err = IsDirEmpty("./emptydir")
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
}
fmt.Println("EmptyDir directory is empty? : ", ok)
}
Sample output :
Current directory is empty? : false
EmptyDir directory is empty? : true
References :
http://golang.org/pkg/os/#File.Readdir
https://www.socketloop.com/tutorials/golang-read-directory-content-with-filepath-walk
See also : Golang : Delete certain files in a directory
By Adam Ng
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