Finding Empty Folders

antroy · Post by **antroy** » 2004 Nov 24, 16:24

Hello all,

I have been using xplorer2 pro since it came out (and 2xexplorer before that) but am only recently using some of its more powerful scrap based features.

One thing I am particularly interested in doing is finding and removing empty folders. I found some info in the PDF manual, which was to do a search for all folders with the additional constraint that size should be 0. I tried this, but the search returned all folders, presumably since their size (in bytes) is equal to 0.

Does anyone know a good way of finding empty folders?

Post by **nikos** » 2004 Nov 24, 16:34

does the manual say that? It is wrong!
i can't think of a way to find all empty folders
what you could do perhaps is run Alt+D on your root to get all folder data, then export this info to a text editor and search for text like
"Sub-Folders=0, Files=0"

of course then you'd need to go back to x2 and delete them but d-clicking from folder data window will help you somewhat

JRz · Post by **JRz** » 2004 Nov 24, 17:33

nikos wrote:does the manual say that? It is wrong!
i can't think of a way to find all empty folders
what you could do perhaps is run Alt+D on your root to get all folder data, then export this info to a text editor and search for text like
"Sub-Folders=0, Files=0"

of course then you'd need to go back to x2 and delete them but d-clicking from folder data window will help you somewhat

Nikos, you should perhaps read the manual too

On page 93 of manual version 1.1.0.0-1 there's a good description of how to get this done the most easy way (you almost got it right though

)

Post by **nikos** » 2004 Nov 24, 17:46

for this kind of thing we need a new stock column that will show the # of items within each folder. Then it can be used as a search criterion

narayan · Post by **narayan** » 2004 Nov 25, 05:13

Nice idea! But why not provide a one-shot command to delete empty folders?

BTW ALT+D would be a completely manual search-and-destroy operation, and quite laborious.

Antroy, You are referring to an old version! Please follow the NEW UM's instructions carefully: put the scrap pane in details mode and then press CTRL+D; otherwise the CTRL+D command's results get reset.

In any case you should not be seeing 00 for all items in the size column. But it is possible that all the folders you have selected are empty, and therefore you are getting this result (?)

Do let us know the results!

Post by **nikos** » 2004 Nov 25, 10:00

But why not provide a one-shot command to delete empty folders

love it or loathe it, x2 has been written with the mentality of providing the most generic tools not necessarily fixed to a job. So instead of providing ready-made gardens it provides shovels so that people can synthesise their own gardens to taste!

btw now i remember we had that discussion about how to detect & destroy empty folders before. I had exactly the same computer-friendly proposition back then and you went for your resource-sapping ctrl+D alternative in the end

narayan · Post by **narayan** » 2004 Nov 25, 11:33

Yes! And happily, the CTRL+D command only saps the PC resources, but not the user's!

JRz · Post by **JRz** » 2004 Nov 28, 23:03

nikos wrote:
[...]love it or loathe it, x2 has been written with the mentality of providing the most generic tools not necessarily fixed to a job. So instead of providing ready-made gardens it provides shovels so that people can synthesise their own gardens to taste!
[...]

Good point. And I quite agree with this!