Your two commands recursively remove directories that match the pattern. The patterns are:-
/home/??*/folder_* - files and directories called folder_ or anything starting folder_ under /home that the intermediate directory is at least two characters long
/home/?/folder_* - files and directories called folder_ or anything starting folder_ under /home that the intermediate directory is exactly one character long
Oddly, this means the same as pattern /home/?*/folder_* when you run them sequentially, however this might have been done if there are many matches and when expanded the overall rm command exceeds the maximum command length. It also ignores anything that matches zero characters for the intermediate directory, such as /home/folder_1
Consider this instead:-
This will search for files (be they regular files, pipes, directories, sockets etc.) under /home called or starting folder_ and remove them if you drop the echo
This will, however remove items called /home/robin/saved/folder_1 too.
You can limit this to just look for directories by adding a -type d clause.
You can limit the depth it will search to using the -mindepth & -maxdepth clauses if your version of find supports them. If find doesn't support them, you might have to force it some other way, such as with an extended regular expression of some sort.
I encourage you to safely have a go and tell us if you get stuck. Only let the rm run once you are sure it will do exactly what you want.
I found a script that is doing some cleanups on the server. The script remove the users folders...
Now, I have two users that I don't want the script to remove their folders
You didn't specify, whether you want to use a specific shell for your script. If it is fine for you to use zsh, there is an interesting features which allows you to do globbing, but to exclude certain directory entries. Assuming that the users to exclude are 'stan' and 'olli', you could write something like
The setopt command turns on the special "exclusion feature", and the (N) ensures that the loop is skipped if no files match the pattern.
Hi there
please have a look at the code..i want to create Using a named pipe. Run a find in the background starting in the working directory
While this is happening wait for input from the user to ask him which file to find.
If the user does not enter any data in 10 seconds ask the user again.... (1 Reply)
Hi, if in a network there are lots of PCs connected with either windows or linux as operating system.Then what will be the shell script for the same and also if the PC has linux in it then we have to find if it is occupied or unoccupied.
If the PC has windows in it then we have to find if it is... (6 Replies)
Hey I have a data in the file named as outputFile.txt. The data is in the format
123456,12345678912345,400,09/09/09,INACTIVE.
I want this output without commas ie
12345612345678912345400090909INACTIVE.
Please tell me what to do and clear explain all the terms, as I am new to it. (6 Replies)
Gents,
I have been working in a Solaris/Unix environment for about 9 months. I took some linux classses online before getting the job. But, I am not very good at scripting. I want to learn how to script. Do you think that I should start with Shell scripting or Perl? I wanted to continue with... (2 Replies)
I just upgraded to Android 2.2 from 2.1. The GPS issue that was troublesome in 2.1 seems to have been fixed. Some of web browsing seems faster, but it could just be my connection is better today ;) Flash works in some browsers but not very good and it is too slow for Flash apps designed for... (0 Replies)
Hi all,
I would like to start developping some good scripting skills. Do you think it would be best to start with shell scripting or Perl? I already got a fundation, really basics, in perl. but I am wondering what would be best to be good at first.
Can you please help me determine which one to... (14 Replies)
Hi
How to call a shell scripting through a Perl scripting? Actually I need some value from Shell scripting and passes in the Perl scripting. So how can i do this? (2 Replies)