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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Shell : deleting only first 2 files in a directory Post 302714673 by alister on Friday 12th of October 2012 12:04:17 PM
Old 10-12-2012
Quote:
Originally Posted by bipinajith
Please try:-

Code:
find . -type f -exec ls -1rt {} \; | head -2 | xargs rm;

That is not a dependable approach. It may work for some, but not for others. For those for which it does work today, it could fail tomorrow. It could also delete files in a subdirectory.

ls is called with a single file argument. Meaning there is nothing to sort. The files will be seen by the pipeline in the order in which find visits them and find makes no guarantees about that order.

If find visits a directory before two regular files in the top-level directory, it could descend into a subdirectory and print the path to one of its regular files.

Regards,
Alister

Last edited by alister; 10-12-2012 at 01:22 PM..
 

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mktrashcan(1)						      General Commands Manual						     mktrashcan(1)

NAME
mktrashcan, rmtrashcan, shtrashcan - Attaches, detaches, or shows a trashcan directory SYNOPSIS
/usr/sbin/mktrashcan trashcan directory... /usr/sbin/rmtrashcan directory... /usr/sbin/shtrashcan directory... OPERANDS
Specifies the directory that contains files that were deleted from attached directories. Whenever you delete a file in the specified directory, the file system automatically moves the file to the trashcan directory. Specifies the directory that you attach to a trashcan directory. DESCRIPTION
The trashcan utilities (mktrashcan and rmtrashcan) enable you to attach or detach an existing directory, which you specify as a trashcan directory, to any number of directories within the same fileset. A trashcan directory stores the files that are deleted with the unlink system call. For instance, you can use the mktrashcan utility to attach a trashcan directory called /usr/trashcan to one or more directories; thereafter, when you delete a file from one of the attached directories, the file system moves the file to the /usr/trashcan directory. Note that when more than one directory shares attachment to a trashcan directory, files with the same file name can overwrite each other in the trashcan directory. If you mistakenly delete a file, use the mv command to return the file from the /usr/trashcan directory to its original directory. When you enter shtrashcan at the system prompt, the system shows the trashcan directory, if one exists, for the directory you specified. It is important that trashcan directories have correct access permissions. If the permissions are too restrictive, then it may be impossi- ble to remove files from the directories that are attached to the trashcan directory. In general, all users and groups that expect to use the trashcan directory need write permission to the directory. If unexpected "permission denied" errors occur when deleting files that are in a directory attached to a trashcan directory, use the chmod command to change the permissions on the trashcan directory. RESTRICTIONS
The directory and trashcan directories must be in the same fileset; however, you can attach the trashcan directory to any directory within the fileset. EXAMPLES
The following example creates and attaches a trashcan directory, /usr/trashcan, to two directories, /usr/ray and /usr/projects/sql/test, which are in the same fileset. The chmod command adds write permission for all users and groups on the new trashcan directory. % mkdir /usr/trashcan % chmod a+w /usr/trashcan % mktrashcan /usr/trashcan /usr/ray /usr/projects/sql/test To attach the trashcan directory, /usr/trashcan, to all subdirectories in the /usr directory, enter: % mktrashcan /usr/trashcan /usr/* New subdirectories that you add beneath the /usr directory are not attached to the trashcan directory until you attach them. Also, the mktrashcan utility distinguishes between directories and files, attaching only directories to the trashcan directory. Note that an attached directory produces an EDUPLICATE_DIRS (-1165) error when /usr/trashcan is itself in the directory path you attach to (as in the previous example). You can ignore this error message. SEE ALSO
advfs(4), mkfset(8), showfsets(8) mktrashcan(1)
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