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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Deleting a million of files .. Post 302897598 by rbatte1 on Tuesday 15th of April 2014 04:55:42 AM
Old 04-15-2014
If actual elapse time is critical because of ongoing processing, could I suggest:-
Code:
mv /path /path-to-del
mkdir -m 777 /path
chown user:group /path

Doing this will be a near instantaneous operation and then with the directory renamed and a new empty one created, your processing can continue whilst you dispose of what is now called /path-to-del at your leisure.

The -m 777 on the mkdir sets the permissions for the directory. The user:group on the chown sets both the owner and group in one operation, rather than having to do a chown and a chgrp


I might be way off course, but I was confused as to why the timing matters so much. If you still want a choice for your original question, I would go with rm -f /path


Another alternate might be available if this is a filesystem you can unmount for a few moments:-
Code:
umount /path
newfs your-options /dev/logical-volume
mount /path

You don't give us an OS or any clue about what devices the disks are on, so I've tried to be generic here. You make have to use mkfs, crfs, fscreate or other things depending what you are running. Of course, this may not be an option.



I hope that these suggestions might help.

Robin
Liverpool/Blackburn
UK
This User Gave Thanks to rbatte1 For This Post:
 

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chown(8)						      System Manager's Manual							  chown(8)

Name
       chown - change owner and, optionally, group

Syntax
       /etc/chown [ -fR ] owner[.group] file...

Description
       The  command  changes  the owner and, optionally, group for one or more files and directories.  The value for file can be a full or partial
       path.  The value for owner can be either a decimal UID or a login name found in the password file.  The value for group	can  be  either  a
       decimal GID or a group name found in the group file.

       Only  the  superuser  can change the ownership of a file.  The superuser can also change the group of a file.  The owner of a file can only
       change the group, but the owner must be a member of any group specified.

Options
       -f   Inhibits display of errors that are returned when cannot change the owner or group of the specified files.

       -R   Causes to recursively descend any directories subordinate to file and to set the owner, group, or  both  for  each	file  encountered.
	    When  symbolic  links  are encountered, changes the owner and group for the link file itself but does not traverse the path associated
	    with the link.  The option is useful only when file is a directory that is not empty.

Examples
       Change the owner of to ecbell:
       /etc/chown ecbell myfile

       Change the owner of to craig and group of to admin:
       /etc/chown craig.admin myfile

       Change the owner to richart and group to eng for the directories and and for all files and directories on any levels subordinate to and
       /etc/chown -R richart.eng projecta projectb

Files
       See Also
	      chgrp(1), chown(2), group(5), group(5yp), passwd(5), passwd(5yp)

																	  chown(8)
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