Shell Programming and Scripting

Guys,

I had raised a question about deleting files older than today in a specific directory and i got this as an answer

find ${ARCH_DEST}/*.gz -mtime +0 -exec rm -f {} \;

What happens when there aren't files that meet this criteria ? Can it delete any other directories ? I had a shocking output of the script yesterday as it looks to me that it has deleted quite a number of directories.

Could it be this command that generated this output ?
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39/backup': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39/original_patch': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39/original_patch/files': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39/original_patch/files/lib': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39/original_patch/files/lib/libn10.a': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39/original_patch/files/lib32': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39/original_patch/files/lib32/libn10.a': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39/original_patch/etc': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39/original_patch/etc/config': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39/original_patch/etc/xml': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39/rac': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39/scratch': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39/files': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39/files/lib': Is a directory
rm: cannot remove `product/10.2.0/.patch_storage/6397938_Sep_21_2007_07_19_39/files/lib/libn10.a': Is a directory


It removed quite a lot of files from a number of directories. It has worked before. Could it be this script ? I've made sure that the script cd's to the right directory

Thanks

Add the "-type f" option to exclude directories:

Code:

find ${ARCH_DEST}/*.gz -mtime +0 -type f -exec rm -f {} \;

You should try it first with an ls command before using the rm command:

Code:

find ${ARCH_DEST}/*.gz -mtime +0 -type f -exec ls -l {} \;

Regards

Thank you Franklin.
The ARCH_DEST is obtained from within a Oracle database, but accidentally the database down when this happened. Could it be that it ran the command for all the directories ?

Also, if no .gz files are available, the the return code is non-zero. basically, i am trying to see if the deletion .gz is successful and if it fails, report it as an error.

Something like this

Delete_Archive() {

LogDest="select value from v\$parameter where name='standby_archive_dest';"
runSql "${LogDest}"
ARCH_DEST="${COUNT}"
cd ${ARCH_DEST}

echo `pwd`

#find ${ARCH_DEST}/*.gz -mtime +0 -exec rm -f {} \;
rm *.gz

RC2=$?

if [[ $RC2 != 0 ]]
then
Mail_Subject="Dataguard on host `hostname`. Delete archive logs older than 24 hrs failed. Please investigate (SEV-4)"
ls -ltr | ${ARCH_DEST} > "${ORACLE_BASE}/oralogs/DELETE_ARCHIVE.log"
Mail_User "$Mail_Subject" "${ORACLE_BASE}/oralogs/DELETE_ARCHIVE.log"
exit 1
fi
}


Can this be coded better ? Can i put a condition saying if the number of files deleted is 0, then it's not an error ?

Thanks

Code:

echo `pwd` => pwd is sufficient

#find ${ARCH_DEST}/*.gz -mtime +0 -exec rm -f {} \;
rm *.gz => this deletes all .gz files!!

RC2=$? => now it gives the returncode of the rm command not the returncode of the find command

Replace the above code with:

Code:

pwd

find ${ARCH_DEST}/*.gz -mtime +0 -exec ls -l {} \; # Use ls -l first to be sure you get the expected files
# find ${ARCH_DEST}/*.gz -mtime +0 -exec rm -f {} \;
RC2=$?

Regards

put an if condition to check that ur sql returned the results successfully, otherwise the find command reads all the *.gz files from all the subdirectories and deletes.

sudhamacs and franklin52 make good points.

Test with "ls" first.
Check that ARCH_DEST is not blank.
Use "-type f" to only find files.


Here's another version with some more points:
This version:
* has no limit on the number of filenames.
* does nothing if there are no files to delete (and does not error).
* works if there are spaces in the filename or directory name.
* "escapes" the "*" and the "." in the "-name" parameter to avoid false matches.


#!/bin/ksh

if [ -d "${ARCH_DEST}" ]
then
find "${ARCH_DEST}/" -name \*\.gz -type f -mtime +0 -print | while read FILENAME
do
ls -ald "${FILENAME}"
# rm "${FILENAME}"
done
else
echo "ARCH_DEST incorrect or missing: ${ARCH_DEST}"
fi

When testing with ls, remember to pass "-d", or you'll get strange results if you do encounter a directory somehow.