That checks if the number of lines in the output of the "ls ~/data/*" command is >=1.
I'm still working on a more elegant solution.
I just found this very issue came up before, and the solution provided is similar to mine, and the author of KM provided a slightly more elegant solution (which I too have come up with) but they don't have anything better.
I may be able to come up with something better yet. Or I may not.