Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi All,
I have a root directory /tmp and I want to purge files or archive files in its subsequent subfolders.I listed the path of files I want to purge(archive) and the #of days.
(purge)
DAYS PATH
7 /tmp/arsenal/*
5 /tmp/chelsea/*

(archive?
the same as above but different folders

To purge I want to use

find $PATH -type f -mtime +$DAYS -exec rm {} \;

The problem now is, in order to do this,I need to first read the DAYS and PATH from the files which I am struggling to do.

I tried this

cat 'filestopurge.txt' | while read DAYS PATH
do
case $AGE in
*) find ........

Please dont forget that it will be read from a file filestopurge.txt

Please advise.

Regards,
Dougy

Something like this ?

Code:

while read DAYS PATH
do
   find $PATH -type f -mtime +$DAYS -exec rm {} \;
done < filestopurge.txt

jean-Pierre.

Hi Pierre,
Does your code take filestopurge.txt as the input file?I mean in read the path and days from it?

Thanks a lot
Dougy

I executed your script against the filestopurge.txt and got this:
./purgeam.sh
./purgeam.sh[4]: find: not found
./purgeam.sh[4]: find: not found
./purgeam.sh[4]: find: not found

the filestopurge.txt looks like this:
DAY PATH
90 /interface/backup/dbmig/tmp/*
100 /interface/backup/dbmig/*

Your script apparently read the DAY as 90 and the path, and executes the command.

Am I right?

For each line of the file, the script read the two fields in the variables DAYS and PATH and execute the find command.

PATH is not a good choice for a variable because it is used by the shell.

Code:

while read DAYS ARCH_PATH
do
   find $ARCH_PATH -type f -mtime +$DAYS -exec rm {} \;
done < filestopurge.txt

If the header 'DAY PATH' is present in your file, it must be skipped:

Code:

while read DAYS ARCH_PATH
do
   [ "$DAYS" = "DAY" ] && continue # Edit: Correct Variable Name  
    find $ARCH_PATH -type f -mtime +$DAYS -exec rm {} \;
done < filestopurge.txt

Another way

Code:

tail +2 filestopurge.txt | \
while read DAYS ARCH_PATH
do
   find $ARCH_PATH -type f -mtime +$DAYS -exec rm {} \;
done

Jean-Pierre.

Thanks Jean,
THe problem now, I got this error:Error in processing the argument DAYS. I thought probably, its unable to read the numbers and the path. I was thinking of using a case statement.What do you think?

Thanks

Run your script with debug option to see the command that are executed

Code:

sh -x the_script

In the input file, remove the trailing '/*' from paths.


Jean-Pierre.