Pls. help with script to remove million files


 
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# 1  
Old 10-10-2013
Pls. help with script to remove million files

Hi,

one of the server, log directory was never cleaned up. We have so many files. I want to remove all the files that starts with dfr* but I get error message when I use the *.

Code:
 
rm qfr*
bash: /usr/bin/rm: Arg list too long

I am trying to write this script but not working.

Code:
 
find .  -type -f -exec rm -f {}

Please help.
# 2  
Old 10-10-2013
did you specify the trailing\; (quoted semicolon); as in...

Code:
find .  -type -f -exec rm -f {} \;

# 3  
Old 10-10-2013
Code

i suggest you use the below code in a loop so that your system does not get hooked up on memory.

Code:
find . -type f -name dfr* -mtime +5 -exec rm -f {} \;

alternatively you can also fire this in a for loop if you know the oldest bfr* file

hope it helps
# 4  
Old 10-10-2013
By default, ls do sort by name which may be painful from a performance point of view if you have a lot of files.
You could use the -f options to disable sorting then get those you want and remove them (in the example below 5 by 5 ... don't take too many of them not to exceed the command line max number of characters )

Code:
ls -f | egrep -e "^qfr" | xargs -n5 rm


Last edited by ctsgnb; 10-10-2013 at 06:07 PM..
These 2 Users Gave Thanks to ctsgnb For This Post:
# 5  
Old 10-11-2013
The belt and braces method is to not let shell see the list

Assuming that you want to remove qfr* (not dfr*) and that the directory does not contain subdirectories containing files which you do not want do delete. if your "find" does not have "-print", then omit the parameter.

Code:
find . -type f -name qfr\* -mtime +5 -print | while read FILENAME
do
       # Remove echo after testing
       echo rm "${FILENAME}"
done

Try with the "echo" in first to check that the list of commands is suitable.
The "-mtime +5" parameter is designed to avoid deleting anything created in the last 5 days.
 
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