Recursively create empty files in all empty 'leaf' sub-directories

Question

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

• Creating empty files in all subfolders
• Recursively add a file to all sub-directories

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

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ドル/.gitkeep 2ドル/.gitkeep... $n/.gitkeep instead of 1ドル 2ドル... $n/.gitkeep as it would do otherwise.