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How to delete many files in Unix

 
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# 1  
Old 11-19-2007
How to delete many files in Unix
Hi,
I am tryting to delete 3 lakch files using below command.

rm 1000318*
it is showing a message "sh: /usr/bin/rm: The parameter list is too long."

please let me know how can i do this.

Thanks
Senthil
# 2  
Old 11-19-2007
sorry to post again

to add up

ls 1000318* | head -1
sh: /usr/bin/ls: The parameter list is too long

i got this error message even when i tried to do ls.
# 3  
Old 11-19-2007
use find...

confirm with

Code:
find . -name "1000318*"

do the remove with

Code:
find . -name "1000318*" | xargs -n 10 rm

# 4  
Old 11-19-2007
Code:
ls|grep ^1000318|xargs rm

# 5  
Old 11-19-2007
Great to see the reply .

Can you please explain why with ls *xx* it is not listing. and what is the speciality with ls | grep ^ *xx*
# 6  
Old 11-19-2007
Because of the ARG_LIST_MAX limit (the shell tries to expand the glob).
It's like "ls ." vs "ls *"
The first alternative gets an argument with one entry, whereas
the second gets an argument consisting of all names in your directory.
Anyway, the find solution seems much faster (you may need to limit the recursion though).
# 7  
Old 11-19-2007
Thanks for your explanation ..

How can we find the ARG_LIST_MAX .. And who decide this value ..Is it admin or UNIX kernel itself.

i tried to do echo $ARG_LIST_MAX but i ger an error

Thanks,
arun.
 
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