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I have created the directory structure for my Maven project.

$ tree -a -I .git . ├── .gitignore ├── README.md ├── pom.xml └── src ├── main │   ├── java │   └── resources └── test ├── java └── resources 7 directories, 2 files

Now I'd like to persist the structure to .git, which requires creating dummy files in sub-directories. How can I (recursively) add empty .gitkeep files to all empty sub-directories?

Following questions already discuss (recursive) creation of empty files in sub-directories, but I'd like the files to be created only in leaf directories and not in any intermediate directories

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
10

From Ryan Armstrong's blog, here's how you do it with GNU find or compatible:

find . -type d -empty -not -path "./.git/*" -exec touch {}/.gitkeep \;
  • find . -type d (recursively) looks for directories under current path
  • -empty filters out directories that already contain something
  • -not -path "./.git/*" ensures no files are created inside .git directory
  • -exec touch {}/.gitkeep \; creates empty .gitkeep file in each directory matching above criteria

The resulting structure looks like

$ tree -a -I .git . ├── .gitignore ├── README.md ├── pom.xml └── src ├── main │   ├── java │   │   └── .gitkeep │   └── resources │   └── .gitkeep └── test ├── java │   └── .gitkeep └── resources └── .gitkeep 7 directories, 7 files
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0
0

With zsh:

() {touch -- $^@/.gitkeep} **/*(/^F)

Where:

  • **/: any amount (including 0) of subdirectories (recursive globing). Note that hidden files and directories are ignored by default.
  • (/^F): glob qualifiers with:
    • /: files of type directory
    • ^F: not Full (empty)
  • {} {body} arguments: anonymous functions:
  • $^@: $@ with rc_expand_param enabled so that $^@/.gitkeep expands to the same as $1/.gitkeep $2/.gitkeep... $n/.gitkeep instead of $1 $2... $n/.gitkeep as it would do otherwise.
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