Utility that can be used to count files in a given directory

count_files.bash

#!/bin/bash

countFiles () {
    # call the recursive function, throw away stdout and send stderr to stdout
    # then sort numerically
    countFiles_rec "$1" 2>&1 >/dev/null | sort -nr
}

countFiles_rec () {
    local -i nfiles 
    dir="$1"

    # count the number of files in this directory only
    nfiles=$(find "$dir" -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type f -print | wc -l)

    # loop over the subdirectories of this directory
    while IFS= read -r subdir; do

        # invoke the recursive function for each one 
        # save the output in the positional parameters
        set -- $(countFiles_rec "$subdir")

        # accumulate the number of files found under the subdirectory
        (( nfiles += $1 ))

    done < <(find "$dir" -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d -print)

    # print the number of files here, to both stdout and stderr
    printf "%d %s\n" $nfiles "$dir" | tee /dev/stderr
}

countFiles $1