Shell Programming and Scripting

Hello out there,
I want to setup a crontab feature to remove temporary pdf files from sub directories that are older than 30 days. I want to presevere the directory structer though. I got this far for a command. Will this remove the pdf's in subdirectories or just directly under the pdf folder? If not how can I alter the command to include files in the subdirectory?

0 0 * * * /prod/app/$LOGNAME/data/audit/pdf -type f -name '*.pdf' -mtime +30 -exec rm {} \;
thanks!!!!

I don't know the command you are executing but what I would do is to replace rm {} by echo {}
and execute it on the command line to check files in the subfolders are also printed.

The following command should remove all the pdf files older than 30 days even if they are stored in subfolders

find . -name "*.pdf" -mtime +30 | xargs -I {} rm -f {} \;

In that particular case, piping to xargs is pointless. You gain nothing. Simply use find's -exec primary as in the original post.

Regards,
Alister

thanks for responeses.

So playing around with this from a command line I couldnt get my year old pdf files to be removed unless I took out the "-mtime +30" completely.
Why is that? Does the -mtime not work properly froma command line prompt?

Code:

0 0 * * * /prod/app/$LOGNAME/data/audit/pdf -type f -name '*.pdf' -mtime +30 -exec rm {} \;

Stupid question. Where is the word "find" in this crontab entry?
Also, where is $LOGNAME going to come from?

For your command line problem, please post a directory listing (ls -la) of the files which you could not remove and the exact command you typed.

This is the line I have now working
find /prod/app/$LOGNAME/data/audit/pdf -type f -name '*.pdf' -exec rm {} \;
$logname is just a user login name. I hardcoded an actual file folder there too and that was working eitherway.

Basically I am ftping an pdf file thats 90 days old onto server. Then testing it at a command line. If I put -mtime +30 in there it doesnt work. If I take it out or put -mtime -30 the pdf file gets deleted. What am I doing wrong?
I just want any pdf files older than the 30 days to be deleted and the rest to remain.

The file timestamps on the "ls -la" listing that you didn't post are the same timestamps as the "-mtime" to "find".
I guess that when you used ftp to copy the files it was less than 30 days ago.
This sentence is ambiguous. Not at all clear which server is which.

Your main issue appears to be that you are copying files and not preserving the timestamp (or not looking at the timestamp of the original file).


There is rarely a reason to use "ftp" except between unix and disparate servers (e.g. an IBM Mainframe or a Windows server). Do you have the option to use proper unix commands to transfer files between servers?