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find -exec directories with spaces

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# 8  
Old 03-12-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by radoulov
You can try:

Code:
... -exec rm -rf '{}' \;

... but I still don't think that the problem is the space in the directory name.
Rad, It does work for any directories without a space so I know the code works, but only doesn't work for directories with a space.

I'll give your code a try!
# 9  
Old 03-12-2010
Try this:

Code:
find /path -mindepth 3 -type d -print0 | xargs -0 rm -rf

# 10  
Old 03-12-2010
Fractionally off topic.
@radoulov and markdjones82 .

After a debate a while back with jlliagre on the subject of quoting '{}' please do post whether quoting '{}' works in this circumstance. It would be my solution but it would also mean that this version of "find" is considered abnormal or that the shell is misbehaving with the braces {}.

Please post what shell you are using. I'd assume it would be bash but it doesn't have to be.

Is the "find" typed at the command prompt or within a script?
# 11  
Old 03-12-2010
The command with '{}' did not work and I am running it from the BASH command line and in a crontab entry.

drew k's command did work however. Thanks drew!
# 12  
Old 03-12-2010
Thank you markdjones82 for your response.
It is clear that this is not a '{}' issue.


Quote:
find /home/chroot/marketing/ -mindepth 3 -type d -exec rm -rf {} \;
find: /home/chroot/marketing/user/download/Fake Name: No such file or directory
I believe that the issue was that directory
/home/chroot/marketing/user
and its subdirectories was deleted before the attempt to delete
/home/chroot/marketing/user/download/Fake Name

The suggestion to use "-depth" was a good idea.
# 13  
Old 03-12-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by methyl
Thank you markdjones82 for your response.
It is clear that this is not a '{}' issue.




I believe that the issue was that directory
/home/chroot/marketing/user
and its subdirectories was deleted before the attempt to delete
/home/chroot/marketing/user/download/Fake Name

The suggestion to use "-depth" was a good idea.
Yeah I tried -depth and it also did not work :/ What exactly does depth do again?
# 14  
Old 03-12-2010
If the problem was that rm cannot find the file, the error message would begin with "rm:" not "find:". find doesn't invoke a shell to execute the rm command and so there is no field splitting. The issue as I can reproduce here is that find finds the directory, correctly execs the rm which removes the directory, and then when find tries to descend into that directory to look for others it prints that error message because the directory is no longer there. radoulov's suggestion to use -depth fixes that by telling find to descend into directories first before processing the directory itself. In this case, that's inefficient since the directory is going to be removed anyway. A better option would be -prune.

Code:
find /home/chroot/marketing/ -mindepth 3 -type d -prune -exec rm -rf {} \;

Regards,
Alister
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