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Delete empty directories recursively - HP-UX

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# 8  
Old 06-03-2011
Let me try.
# 9  
Old 06-03-2011
Try this:
Code:
#! /bin/ksh

function remove_directory
{
        typeset olddir ok
        olddir=$(pwd)
        cd $1
        ok=1
        for name in *  .* ; do
                if [[ $name = . ]] ; then
                        continue
                elif [[ $name = .. ]] ; then
                        continue
                elif [[ $name = '*' ]] ; then
                        continue
                elif [[ -d $name ]] ; then
                        remove_directory $name  || ok=0
                else
                        ok=0
                fi
        done
        cd $olddir
        if ((ok)) ; then
                rmdir $1
                return 0
        else
                return 1
        fi
}

remove_directory $1
exit 0

# 10  
Old 06-03-2011
Hello, Perderabo:

A minor nit which in practice is very unlikely to occur, but I will point it out because these little corner cases can be educational for novices.

Your code will misbehave if it encounters a directory named '*'. Instead of recursing, it'll skip over it. If that skipped directory and any directories it contains are all otherwise empty, that part of the tree will not be removed.

My suggested fix for this approach would be to AND a negated test for existence to the '*' equality test.

Regards,
Alister
Last edited by alister; 06-03-2011 at 11:46 AM..
# 11  
Old 06-03-2011
That's an intentional feature. This allow the user to create a directory which will never be deleted by the script. SmilieSmilieSmilie
# 12  
Old 06-03-2011
Hehehe. As always, you're one step ahead. Smilie
# 13  
Old 06-07-2011
This one
find . -type d -depth -exec rmdir {} + 2>/dev/null
works perfect.

Thanks a lot.

---------- Post updated at 02:30 PM ---------- Previous update was at 02:26 PM ----------

My thanks to everyone who spent their time. I could not test all the approaches and I am sure there might be other options. The one find . -type d -depth -exec rmdir {} + 2>/dev/null is neat and clean. There are oppornunities of lot of learning from this forum...
Asutosh
# 14  
Old 06-08-2011
Quote:
find . -type d -depth -exec rmdir {} + 2>/dev/null
Scary piece of code. Tries to remove every directory in the tree one-by-one and ignores all errors.

Hmm. Removes all empty directories on the first pass. Needs multiple passes to remove directories which have become empty.
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