From: Paul Smith <paul@mad-scientist.net>
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 22:25:02 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] git-new-workdir: Don't fail if the target directory is empty
Message-ID: <1416349502.3899.30.camel@mad-scientist.net>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqegt0usy3.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>

On Tue, 2014-11-18 at 12:58 -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Doesn't the description of the -A option I quoted upthread hint a
> simpler and clearer solution?  I.e. "test $(ls -A | wc -l) = 0"?

Yes, but unfortunately for us the -A flag was added to POSIX Issue 7.
It's not present in the previous version of POSIX, Issue 6:

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/ls.html

It came from the BSD world, so it might not be available on older
SysV-derived systems (AIX, HP-UX, even Solaris... I don't have access to
these anymore so I can't say).  Ultimately it's probably more portable
to assume "ls -a" always prints "." and ".." than to assume "ls -A" is
supported.

Cheers!