UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers

OK, your OS is IBMs AIX and the version you run is 7.1. Good!


Yes, this is - more or less - correct. You won't need the leading "*" and you won't need the "r", so your command should read:

Code:

rm -f 20151120*.dat

but this is a detail. As long as there are no directories named "*20151120*.dat" and no files named "<something>20151120*.dat" it will make no difference. Notice, though, that AIX (like all other UNIXes) does NOT have an "undelete" feature, therefore one tends to be very careful with deletion. It is easier to execute rm a second time because one command didn't delete all the files than it is to restore an accidentally deleted file from the backup (you DO HAVE backups, don't you?).

But by doing it this way you base your solution on the filename instead of the filedate. Have a look at this example where we want to delete files from Nov 22nd:

Code:

$ ls -l
total 20
-rw-rw-rw-  2 bakunin staff 4096 Nov 21 10:00 somefile
-rw-rw-rw-  2 bakunin staff 4096 Nov 22 23:10 20151122foo.dat
-rw-rw-rw-  2 bakunin staff 4096 Nov 22 23:10 myfile
-rw-rw-rw-  2 bakunin staff 4096 Nov 23 10:00 otherfile

Using your solution rm -f 20151122*.dat would get you the first file, because it is named "20151122<something>.dat" and actually its file date says it is from the Nov 22nd too. The second file would not be caught by your solution because it does not follow this naming convention. Still, its filedate is "Nov 22 23:10" and this could be utilized too. Using the find-command i suggested would allow to base the solution on the filedate instead of the name. It would catch the second and third file while leaving the first and the fourth file.

(Hint: you will either need the -newer clause of find or the -ctime clause.)

I hope this helps.

bakunin

In post #2 I did not want to deviate from what you had already posted, so there was no confusion in what I was trying to point out. Now, I think it would be good to expand a bit more upon what you have experienced, already.

In reality, you only need rm 20151120*.dat, however this might prompt you to confirm for each file it tries to delete. Adding the -f (force) would suppress any prompting and it will ignore if it doesn't find any file matching that pattern.
The -r is intended for directory. It will descend any directory that matches the pattern and it will delete every files in it and the directory afterward. Thus, you do not want to use it unless necessary.
Otherwise it might delete a directory named 20151120.dat or one that matches the pattern.

Hello,
why don't you delete all files older than ? by using crontab ?

For example :

Code:

find /Path -name "tmp*" -mtime +14 -exec rm -f {} \;

(Delete all tmp files older than 14 days )

Regards

Moderator's Comments:

edit by bakunin: Please use CODE-tags like the ones i edited in for you. Thank you.

If you look up the thread this is roundabout what i tried the threads o/p to get to. The only problem is that the threads o/p wanted to delete filex exactly X days old, not older than X days. It is also not clear if s/he wants to base it on creatime time (-ctime), modifying time (-mtime), or last access time (-atime). In any case you need to concatenate 2 such clauses (i.e \( -mtime +14 \) -a \( ! -mtime +15 \)) or 2 reference files to base a -newer-clause upon (i.e. \( -newer /path/to/fileA \) -a \( ! -newer /path/to/fileB \)).

I hope this helps.

bakunin

The OP clearly was referring to the name of the files when mentioning any indication of day. The introduction of the find command in this thread has become an artifact of ignoring this indication.

Actually he wasn't:

To "leave some days" means - IMHO - to leave the files generated at these days, which means a data-based selection. That the file names coincide with the file dates (which you can see in his original listing above) might have brought him to use the former instead of the date as a selection criterium, but since this is a forum about learning something i pointed him to find, which allows both: base the file selection upon names or dates (or even both, if desired).

How this - which was clearly pointed out, btw. - is "ignoring" anything, much less an indication that never has been given in first place, eludes me.

bakunin

Hi, bakunin

It is not quite certain to me, if your latest post is an invitation to a follow up on my part. If so, do not get offended if I do not wish to discuss with you your latest statement. Mine was intended for the general reader.

Take care