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Delete a directory after X number of days

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# 1  
Old 07-28-2010
Delete a directory after X number of days
Hi
How do I remove a directory which are some days old .

For Ex :
Code:
$ cd /WMID/data/temp/TxTest/Dev/txStore
$ ls -ltr
total 0
drwxr-xr-x    3 wmethods wmapp            80 Jul 21 03:36 0AE445C4
drwxr-xr-x    3 wmethods wmapp            80 Jul 21 04:00 0AE44664
drwxr-xr-x    3 wmethods wmapp            80 Jul 22 04:50 0AE4478B
drwxr-xr-x    3 wmethods wmapp            80 Jul 22 04:51 0AE047C2
drwxr-xr-x    3 wmethods wmapp            80 Jul 22 23:47 0AE44811
drwxr-xr-x    3 wmethods wmapp            80 Jul 27 02:15 0AE44DDA
$ cd 0AE445C4
$ ls -ltr
total 16
drwxr-xr-x    2 wmethods wmapp          1024 Jul 21 03:37 A192CFCC
$ cd ../0AE44664
$ ls -ltr
total 16
drwxr-xr-x    2 wmethods wmapp          1024 Jul 21 04:00 A191C022

I tried the below command and getting an error
Code:
$  find /WMID/data/temp/TxTest/Dev/txStore -type d -mtime +1 -exec rm -rf {} \;
find: 0652-081 cannot change directory to </WMID/data/temp/TxTest/Dev/txStore/0AE047C2>:
  : A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
find: 0652-081 cannot change directory to </WMID/data/temp/TxTest/Dev/txStore/0AE445C4>:
  : A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
find: 0652-081 cannot change directory to </WMID/data/temp/TxTest/Dev/txStore/0AE44664>:
  : A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
find: 0652-081 cannot change directory to </WMID/data/temp/TxTest/Dev/txStore/0AE4478B>:
  : A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
find: 0652-081 cannot change directory to </WMID/data/temp/TxTest/Dev/txStore/0AE44811>:
  : A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
find: 0652-081 cannot change directory to </WMID/data/temp/TxTest/Dev/txStore/0AE44DDA>:
  : A file or directory in the path name does not exist.

Any help would be great

Thanks
Leo
Last edited by leo76; 07-28-2010 at 11:55 AM.. Reason: Please use code tags
# 2  
Old 07-28-2010
Might be a bit late for that. This is not a syntax error.

Quote:
find /WMID/data/temp/TxTest/Dev/txStore -type d -mtime +1
The above statement finds the parent directory first:
/WMID/data/temp/TxTest/Dev/txStore
Then the command part deleted the entire tree recursively.
The remaining deletions all fail because the directories have already been deleted.
# 3  
Old 09-08-2010
This should work exactly as you require

Code:
find /WMID/data/temp/TxTest/Dev/txStore -type d -mtime +1 | xargs rm -rf

# 4  
Old 09-08-2010
Moving - nothing AIX related in it.
# 5  
Old 09-08-2010
@jkhan69
Quote:
find /WMID/data/temp/TxTest/Dev/txStore -type d -mtime +1 | xargs rm -rf
This has exactly the same problem where the first directory found is the parent directory "/WMID/data/temp/TxTest/Dev/txStore" which we can tell from what actually happened had a timestamp older than one day.

The find command would have been better as:
Code:
find /WMID/data/temp/TxTest/Dev/txStore/* -prune -type d -mtime +1

The "*" ensures that we only look at the subdirectories. The "-prune" stops us descending the tree. Thus we only make the decision whether to delete the directory based on the criteria in the original post and only issue one "rm" per deletable tree.

The moral of this story is to test the "find" statement thoroughly before spawning powerful commands like "rm -rf".
# 6  
Old 09-08-2010
Hehe you original statement is fine except your missing a very simple switch...
Code:
find /WMID/data/temp/TxTest/Dev/txStore -maxdepth 1 -type d -mtime +1 -exec rm -rf {} \;

# 7  
Old 09-09-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by methyl
The moral of this story is to test the "find" statement thoroughly before spawning powerful commands like "rm -rf".
Nice one mate.. Like it Smilie
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