How can I list only non-empty files using ls?

Question

How can I list (using ls) all files that are not empty (size > 0) using linux?

Solution 1

I'd use find dirname -not -empty -ls, assuming GNU find.

Solution 2

This is a job for find ls is not powerful enough.

find -maxdepth 1 -size +0 -print

-maxdepth 1 - this tells find to search the current dir only, remove to look in all sub dirs or change the number to go down 2, 3 or more levels.

-size +0 this tells find to look for files with size larger than 0 bytes. 0 can be changed to any size you would want.

-print tells find to print out the full path to the file it finds

Edit:
Late addition: You should probably also add the -type f switch above. This tells find to only find files. And as noted in comments below, the -print switch is not really needed.

Solution 3

ls -l | awk '{if ($5 != 0) print $9}'

If you are intent on using ls, you need a little help from awk.

Solution 4

find dirname -type f ! -empty

Solution 5

Ls has almost no option to filter files: that's not its job. Filtering files is the job of the shell for simple cases (through globbing) and the job of find for complex cases.

In zsh, you can the L globbing qualifier to retain only files whose size is >0 (the . qualifier restricts to regular files):

ls *(.L+0)

Users of other shells must use find. With GNU find (as found mostly on Linux):

find -maxdepth 1 -type f ! -empty -exec ls {} +

A POSIX-compliant way is:

find . -type f -size +0c -exec ls {} + -o -name . -o -prune

If ls wasn't just an example and you merely intend visual inspection, you could sort by size: ls -S.

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Comments

[cYrus]

To avoid a warning you should place -maxdepth 1 before -size +0. Also -print is the default action, so it's not needed.

[Julian]

@cYrus - No warnings for me (cygwin)

[Daenyth]

Anyone care to explain the downvote?

[Telemachus]

Implementations of find vary a lot in terms of what valid options are and where they can go. GNU find (which is awfully common) will produce a warning if you put -size before -maxdepth.

[Pylsa]

Probably because the asker asked for ls and you used find ;) I upped though... It's a proper solution

[user672009]

If you use "find . -not -empty -ls" it will also include the current directory (ie "." in it's output), to just include the current files use "find . -type f -not -empty -ls"