counting number of directories in a specific directory

Question

How to count the number of folders in a specific directory. I am using the following command, but it always provides an extra one.

find /directory/ -maxdept         


        

Answer 1

Run stat -c %h folder and subtract 2 from the result. This employs only a single subprocess as opposed to the 2 (or even 3) required by most of the other solutions here (typically find plus wc).

Using sh/bash:

cnt=$((`stat -c %h folder` - 2))
echo $cnt   # 'echo' is a sh/bash builtin, not an additional process

Using csh/tcsh:

@ cnt = `stat -c %h folder` - 2
echo $cnt   # 'echo' is a csh/tcsh builtin, not an additional process

Explanation: stat -c %h folder prints the number of hardlinks to folder, and each subfolder under folder contains a ../ entry which is a hardlink back to folder. You must subtract 2 because there are two additional hardlinks in the count:

1. folder's own self-referential ./ entry, and
2. folder's parent's link to folder