Shell Programming and Scripting

I posted a week ago regarding this scripting question, but I need to revisit and have a few more questions answered..

User cfajohnson was extremely helpful with the archive script, but clarification on my part is needed to help steer the answer in a direction that works in this particular production environment.

The basics:

I have a large list of filenames, running in the thousands, with varying extension types....these extensions and . were pruned from this list, strictly just filenames now, ex., "filename.psd" has been changed to "filename"

The need:

To search through our production server traversing through multiple directory trees and to archive these files, each file size ranging anywhere from 200 KB to 200 MB with different file extensions such as .psd, .eps, or nothing at all, keeping in mind that directory structure in the archive is not necessary, only the file itself as a backup in one archive directory. Once backed up on DVD, etc., this file list can then be read from again and used to delete all files on the server traversing through multiple directory trees while maintaining directory structure and any other files inside these directories that do not match the file list being used.

The catch:

Having some trouble executing scripts, even simple ones such as:

#!/bin/bash
# script to list files and permissions, name: listFiles
ls -l

The permissions were changed to execute the file, i.e.,

chmod +x listFiles

...however, after attempting to execute the file at the command line by simply typing listFiles (I also tried typing $listFiles), bash returns with:

-bash: listFiles: command not found

Perhaps my permissions as admin or user are incorrect? or my path to /bin/bash needs to include a full path back through my permissions tree as a user?

Also, thank you to users srikanthus2002 and jacoden with:

find / -type f -name "fil*" -exec rm {} \;

however, is "fil*" actually READING the list provided in the file and using that list to feed or pipe into -exec rm {}, or strictly looking for the filename of the list file and deleting the list file?

Thanks for your help!

....ok, how bout just a command to read from the list and delete the files throughout the directory tree?

If the script called listfiles is in the current directory, use
./listfiles
to run it. Alternatively, listfiles could be placed in one of the directories on your PATH. Use "echo $PATH" to see the path.

If qwerty.qqq has been recorded as simply qwerty, what happens if there is both a qwerty.qqq and a qwerty.yyy? Since you are looking for thousands of files, you will need to do something like this:
find / -print > /some/directory/longlisting
and then repeatedly search longlisting to get the paths to the files to be archived.

I've determined now that I no longer need to archive these files, merely delete them using this list.

You are correct, qwerty will find all combinations including qwerty.aaa, qwerty.bbb, qwerty.ccc, etc., this is ok and exactly what I want since these files are, for all intents and purposes, the same file, simply different resolutions and formats for our needs....however, we no longer need this particular list of files and need to be purged.

The find command seems like it would work in combination with -exec rm , but how do I get find to read from the list?

Don't try to get find to read from your list. Instead do this:
find / -name > /tmp/every.last.file
grep -f /path/to/mylist /tmp/every.last.file
This should produce a list of pathnames to files. Look it over and be sure you want to delete all of this stuff. If you are sure you want to delete them all, do:
grep -f /path/to/mylist /tmp/every.last.file | xargs rm

hmm, lemme check this out...