01-28-2009
the -prune option prevents find from walking a subdirectory underneath it's current location. Without prune, you might print a listing as follows:
file1
file2
dir1
dir1/file1
dir1/file2
file3
file4
With prune you would print a listing like this:
file1
file2
dir1
file3
file4
When the command is piped into xargs followed by another command like the 'rm' in your example xargs acts as like a loop for the input coming from the pipe and runs the command (rm -f ) for each line of input.
The directory wont be removed by rm -f but the error will be sent to /dev/null so the user wont see this. The effect is that the files will be removed but not the directories, nor the files in the directories.
9 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting
1. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers
I am trying to get a list of top level directories below the search path but I don't want to descend subdirectories. The find command listed below returns me the list I want but it also returns subdirectories. I can't seem to get the -prune option to work the way I want. How would I modify the... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: FuzzySlippers
5 Replies
2. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
Hi,
I'm using the following command to get a list of files on the system.
find /releases -type f -exec ls -l > /home/sebarry/list.txt '{}' \;
however, its searching a directory I don't want it to search so I know I have to use prune but I don't seem to be able to get prune and exec to work... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: Sebarry
1 Replies
3. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers
I have a directory named https-abcd
Under that I have some directories, files and links.
One of those directories is with name logs and the logs directory has lot of files in it.
I need to tar the whole https-abcd directory excluding the logs directory only, I should get all the links, files and... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: venu_nbk
2 Replies
4. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
I've run into a brick wall using the -prune command to avoid walking sub-directories. Does any one have any suggestions on how I avoid walking the sub-directories when finding files in the following example?
I want to find all files older than 30 days in the dir1 directory and only the dir1... (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: 2reperry
7 Replies
5. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers
Hi,
I am using a find command like below in my script:
find /outfiles -type f -name cat -o -name vi -o -name grep 2>/dev/null
Which will search for files like "cat" , "vi" or "grep" in the "/outfiles" and subdirectories.
I want to ignore a particular subdirectory from the search. I... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: deepakgang
4 Replies
6. Solaris
I'm trying to get a count of all the files in a series of directories on a per directory basis. Directory structure is like (but with many more files):
/dir1/subdir1/file1.txt
/dir1/subdir1/file2.txt
/dir1/subdir2/file1.txt
/dir1/subdir2/file2.txt
/dir2/subdir1/file1.txt... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: MartynAbbott
4 Replies
7. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers
Hi , Kindly help me out .:)
i want to find only the file t4 in directory t3. i am in dir t . the tree is as follows.
if i give,
find .
o/p is
.
./t4
./t1
./t1/t2
./t1/t2/t3
./t1/t2/t3/t4
./t1/t2/t4
./t1/t4
directories are like t/t1/t2/t3 and each directory has file t4.
my... (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: bhuvaneshlal
7 Replies
8. Shell Programming and Scripting
Hi
I have a directory say mydir and inside it there are many files and subdirectories and also a directory called lost+found owned by root user
I want to print all files directories and subdirectorres from my directory using find command except lost+found
If i do
find . \( -name... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: xiamin
3 Replies
9. UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers
I need to delete all files from the working directory and its sub directories using the find command, for that I am using -prune option but some how I am having a syntax issue.
I have tried the below, please help me correct the syntax
find . -name \* -type f -exec rm -f {} \; >> Works but... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: rosebud123
4 Replies
diff3(1) General Commands Manual diff3(1)
Name
diff3 - 3-way differential file comparison
Syntax
diff3 [-ex3] file1 file2 file3
Description
The command compares three versions of a file, and publishes the ranges of text that disagree, flagged with the following codes:
==== all three files differ
====1 file1 is different
====2 file2 is different
====3 file3 is different
The type of change needed to convert a given range of a given file to some other is indicated in one of these ways:
f : n1 a Text is to be appended after line number n1 in file f, where f = 1, 2, or 3.
f : n1 , n2 c
Text is to be changed in the range line n1 to line n2. If n1 = n2, the range may be abbreviated to n1.
The original contents of the range follows immediately after a c indication. When the contents of two files are identical, the contents of
the lower-numbered file is suppressed.
Options
-3 Produces an editor script containing the changes between file1 and file2 that are to be incorporated into file3.
-e Produces an editor script containing the changes between file2 and file3 that are to be incorporated into file1.
-x Produces an editor script containing the changes among all three files.
Examples
Under the -e option, publishes a script for the editor that incorporates into file1 all changes between file2 and file3 - that is, the
changes that would normally be flagged ==== and ====3. Option -x (-3) produces a script to incorporate only changes flagged ==== (====3).
The following command applies the resulting script to `file1':
(cat script; echo '1,$p') | ed - file1
Restrictions
Text lines that consist of a single `.' defeat -e.
Files
/tmp/d3?????
/usr/lib/diff3
See Also
cmp(1), comm(1), diff(1), dffmk(1), join(1), sccsdiff(1), uniq(1)
diff3(1)