read the contents of a directory using shell script

Question

I'm trying to get the contents of a directory using shell script.

My script is:

for entry in `ls`; do
    echo $entry
done

However, my current directory contains many files with whitespaces in their names. In that case, this script fails.

What is the correct way to loop over the contents of a directory in shell scripting?

PS: I use bash.

Hodgkin

very related question: stackoverflow.com/questions/2437452 – Hodgkin

Answer 1

for entry in *
do
  echo "$entry"
done

Ringster

Maybe you should use 'for entry in * .*'? – Cryptography

@Jonathan: If you need to match files starting with a . then you're better off twiddling the dotglob option. – Ringster

what is the dotglob option? – Hodgkin

When dotglob is set (via shopt -s dotglob) * will match files that start with a .. – Ringster

You've already accepted an answer for this question. Create a new one. – Ringster

Answer 2

don't parse directory contents using ls in a for loop. you will encounter white space problems. use shell expansion instead

   for file in *
    do
      if [ -f "$file" ];then
       echo "$file"
      fi
    done

Undergraduate

that's bash syntax. try it and see. remember the double quotes around variables. This will preserve white spaces. Just don't use ls in the for loop – Undergraduate