UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I am trying to delete a load of core files, but make sure I only delete core files. The system I am using has many files with core in the name, so I obviously can not simply search for "core".

I have tried using the 'find' command with pattern matching via [0-9], and know that his is the way forward. However, I can not work out how to ensure there are no alphabetic characters in the file extension.

So far I have the following:

Code:

find ./ -type f -name "core.[0-9]*" -exec rm -f {} \;

However, this will still delete files called "core.1a". Please do not question why anyone would call I file this - it just might be the case, and I have to ensure I avoid these files.

So I need a regular expression that will find:
files
starting with "core."
with an extension of one or more numbers
without an alphabetic lower or uppercase character in the extension

Must be a pretty standard cron job set up an many systems I imagine?

Ok, this seems to do the trick:

Code:

find ./ -type f -name "core.[0-9]*" ! -name "*.*[a-z]"  ! -name "*snapshot*" -exec rm -f {} \;

Anyone spot any flaw in this?

Spotted it mysekf:

Code:

find ./ -type f -name "core.[0-9]*" ! -name "*.*[a-Z]*"  ! -name "*snapshot*" -exec rm -f {} \;

note the change from lower case z to upper case Z, and the additional asterix after[a-Z]:

Code:

! -name "*.*[a-Z]*"

is it not [a-zA-Z]