find with xargs to rm found files


 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting find with xargs to rm found files
# 1  
Old 08-11-2010
find with xargs to rm found files

I believe what is happening is rm is executing in the script on every directory and on failure of the first it stops although returns status 0.

Code:
find $HOME -name /directory/filename | xargs -l rm

This is the code I use but file remains. I am using sun solaris system which has way limited set of utilities compared to Ubuntu
# 2  
Old 08-11-2010
Is your rm aliased to rm -i ? did you try rm -rf instead of just rm..?
# 3  
Old 08-11-2010
Quote:
find $HOME -name /directory/filename | xargs -l rm
The above syntax for "find" will never find any file.

Please post a the full hierarchial name of example files which you wish to find and delete - stating which directory tree(s) to search.

Also, do any of your target filenames or directory names contain space characters?
# 4  
Old 08-11-2010
I figured it out. Odd to me. If find receives just a filename it will append the full path to xargs which delivers it to rm.

Code:
find $HOME -name "$1" -exec rm {} \;

Find will retrieve the full path to the command-line argument and put it in {}

Works. now I just need to figure out how to parse a string of paths separated by new line
# 5  
Old 08-11-2010
Code:
find $HOME -name "$1" | xargs rm

Jean-Pierre.
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Shell Programming and Scripting

Fast processing(mv command) of 1 million+ files using find, mv and xargs

Hi, I'd like to ask if anybody can help improve my code to move 1 million+ files from a directory to another: find /source/dir -name file* -type f | xargs -I '{}' mv {} /destination/dir I learned this line of code from this forum as well and it works fine. However, file movement is kinda... (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: agentgrecko
6 Replies

2. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

find/xargs/*grep: find multi-line empty "try-catch" blocks - eg, missing ; not in a commented block

How can I recursively find all files in a directory and print out the file and first line number of any text blocks that match the below cases? This would seem to involve find, xargs, *grep, regex, etc. In summary, I want to find so-called empty "try-catch blocks" that do not contain code... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: lifechamp
0 Replies

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

help using find/xargs to apply mp3gain to files

I need to apply mp3gain (album mode) to all mp3 files in a given directory. Each album is in its own directory under /media/data/music/albums for example: /media/data/music/albums/foo /media/data/music/albums/bar /media/data/music/albums/more What needs to happen is: cd... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: audiophile
4 Replies

4. Shell Programming and Scripting

Xargs + Find Help

Guys i want to run a command to list all directories that havn't been modified in over 548 days ( 1.5 yrs ). Id like to run a script to first print what the command finds ( so i get a list of the files pre move ... i have a script set for this : find /Path/Of\ Target/Directory/ -type d -mtime... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: modulartention
4 Replies

5. Shell Programming and Scripting

find and xargs

hi, i've been trying to figure this weird error but I cannot seem to know why. I am using below find command: find . \( ! -name . -prune \) -type f -mtime +365 -print The above code returns no file because no files are really more then 365 days old. However, when I use xargs, its... (9 Replies)
Discussion started by: The One
9 Replies

6. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

XARGS and FIND together

I am trying to delete files older than 60 days from a folder: find /myfolder/*.dat -mtime +60 -exec rm {} \; ERROR - argument list too long: find I can't just give the folder name, as there are some files that I don't want to delete. So i need to give with the pattern (*.dat). I can... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: risshanth
3 Replies

7. Shell Programming and Scripting

find | xargs cat

Hi, I am having trouble getting a combination of commands to work. I need to traverse through all sub-directories of a certain directory and 'cat' the contents of a particular file in the sub-directories. The commands on their own work but when I combine them I get no output. The... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: DownunderDave
4 Replies

8. Shell Programming and Scripting

print as well as count the files found by find command

I want the output of the find command to be printed and also the total files found by it. Can someone help in this. Obviously $ find . -type f | wc -l will not output the files found but only the count. I want both. There can be millions and trillions of files so dont want the output of find... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: amicon007
3 Replies

9. Shell Programming and Scripting

Problem using find and xargs

I'm using Imagemagick to create thumbnails for a large directory tree. The only thing I can't see is how to get it to write the thumbnails to a "thumbs" subdirectory! Either of these two commands from the Imagemagick site does most of the job: find -name '*.jpg' | xargs -n1 sh -c 'convert $0... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: quixote
5 Replies

10. Shell Programming and Scripting

find command in while loop - how to get control when no files found?

I have the following statement in script: find ${LANDING_FILE_DIR}${BTIME_FILENAME_PATTERN2} -print | while read file; do ... done When there are no files located by the find comand it returns: "find: bad status-- /home/rnitcher/test/....." to the command line How do I get control in... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: mavsman
3 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question