Shell Programming and Scripting

Dear all,

I have a dir structure like

Code:

                                    main_dir
                  At_nn                Ag_js              Nf_hc .... 
           mcd32 mgd43...     mcd32 mgd43...         mcd32 mgd43...

and each subdir (e.g. mcd32, mgd43) contains files.

Now, i have a list (tobedelete.txt) of filenames (not the complete path). I want to delete only those files which are in the tobedelete.txt.

I am trying like
first I go to the dir main_dir and

Code:

find . -name tobedelete.txt -exec rm {};

but doesnt work.
any comment will be appreciated.
cheers.

You could try the following;

Code:

for i in `cat tobedelete.txt`
do
find . -name ${i} -exec rm {} \;
done

Although to be sure it's going to remove the right files i'd do this first.

Code:

for i in `cat tobedelete.txt`
do
find . -name ${i} -print
done

Regards

Dave

There is a fundamenal understanding problem here, The "find" command posted will look for a file called "tobedelete.txt" and delete that file (not the files listed in that file).

The code posted by "gull04" is scary.

Please post the actual directory structure in machine-readable format:

I've used this type of routine many times, in view of the original post made by yogeshkumkar and given that I pointed out that he should print out the list of the find command I'd just like to understand how my code was "scary".

I'm quite happy to admit that I'm as likely to screw up as the next guy, but in this case I can't really see what is wrong with the advice that I gave. As I'm always keen to learn, I'd appreciate your feedback.

I don't mean to be critical, I'm just interested to know - I wouldn't deliberately give someone poor advice. I really didn't think that my post was too far off the mark, I use "find" this way frequently - I'm quite happy to admit my shortfalls but in this case I thought the advice was OK. Based on the original post I didn't think this was poor advice, I was just trying to solve a problem for someone.

Perhaps I should have said that the code should be "rm -i" and you can check each file prior to deletion.

Code:

for i in `cat tobedelete.txt`
do
find . -name ${i} -exec rm -i {} \;
done

Regards

Dave

Thanks for the comments Methyl and Dave.
The answer by Dave doesnt work. it simply removes the content of the tobedeted.txt.

The actual dir structure is like

in the main_dir
there are subdirs like AAA, BBB, CCC, ....

inside AAA there are subdirs like aa1, aa2, aa3, ...
inside aa1 there are files like AAA_aa1_file1.txt, AAA_aa1_fileextra.txt, AAA_aa1_mod43a4.txt, ....
inside aa2 there are files like AAA_aa2_file1.txt, AAA_aa2_fileextra.txt, AAA_aa2_mod43a4.txt, ....

inside BBB there are subdirs like bb1, bb2, bb3, ...
inside bb1 there are files like BBB_bb1_file1.txt, BBB_bb1_fileextra.txt, BBB_bb1_mod43a4.txt, ....
inside bb2 there are files like BBB_bb2_file1.txt, BBB_bb2_fileextra.txt, BBB_bb2_mod43a4.txt, ....

and so on...up to many hundred of files. I managed to the get the filenames which I must delete.

e.g. the content of tobedeleted.txt is

AAA_aa1_fileextra.txt
BBB_bb1_file1.txt
BBB_bb1_mod43a4.txt
CCC_cc4_mfg54d2.txt
GGG_gg6_hd21s1.txt
and so on....

i hope there is a way!

Hi yogeshkumkar,

What does the command Return?

Code:

for i in `cat tobedelete.txt`
do
find . -name ${i} -print
done

Just for information, the tobedeleted.txt file should be in the directory where you are running the script from or you should enter the pat to the file as well such as "for i in `/path/to/file/tobedeleted.txt`"

Regards

Dave

Thanks Dave,

find: paths must precede expression
Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [path...] [expression]

the file "tobedeted.txt" is in the same dir where AAA, BBB, and so on are.

pwd: /my/path/main_dir/
find . -name "tobedeleted.txt" | xargs rm

it works only if I have full path of each filename in the tobedeted.txt

how can i create the full path for each filename?