Nice! This wins :) I had to modify it a bit to get it to work cross-platform, but the approach does appear to be sound: find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -print0

Nice! This wins :) I had to modify it a bit to get it to work cross-platform, but the approach does appear to be sound: find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -print0 | tr -d -c '\000' | wc -c I had originally written "Hint: it probably isn't what you think it is, if it's even possible", but after testing for a bit, I updated my comment in what was apparently a fit of hubris to say you couldn't.