How to del all the files expanded by an tarball file?

hkl8324 · 06-13-2005, 12:30 AM

i wrongly expand the kernel-source 2.6.8.11 to /usr/src/ but not /usr/src/kernel-source

and /usr/src/ become a mess........

how can i del all the files wrongly expanded there? (i mean a intelligent method......but not manually doing it.....)

thanks

aikidoist72 · 06-13-2005, 12:44 AM

hkl8324

Be careful that you did not have anything in /usr/src/ that you may need before deleting like source files from your working kernel. then run

Code:

rm /usr/src/*

This will remove all files in this folder. BE WARNED!!!

hkl8324 · 06-13-2005, 12:50 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by aikidoist72
hkl8324

Be careful that you did not have anything in /usr/src/ that you may need before deleting like source files from your working kernel. then run

Code:

rm /usr/src/*

This will remove all files in this folder. BE WARNED!!!

i do have many files in /usr/src/ ..........

MikeZila · 06-13-2005, 01:24 AM

If you could get a list of all the files in the archive you expanded and dump them to a text file, you could just manually add "rm" in front of each of them and run it as a shell script by adding "#!/bin/sh" at the top and making it executable.

It would be the best way to weed out the files you didn't mean to extract while keeping the ones you want.

hkl8324 · 06-13-2005, 01:52 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by MikeZila
If you could get a list of all the files in the archive you expanded and dump them to a text file, you could just manually add "rm" in front of each of them and run it as a shell script by adding "#!/bin/sh" at the top and making it executable.

It would be the best way to weed out the files you didn't mean to extract while keeping the ones you want.

O...thank you...

you are very smart

MikeZila · 06-13-2005, 01:58 AM

Did this work for you?

short101 · 06-13-2005, 03:54 AM

Not an answer but a question. What command did you use to do this?

hkl8324 · 06-13-2005, 04:13 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by MikeZila
Did this work for you?

works

i just put rm at the front and [filename1/foldername1] [filename2/foldername2].........

but it is quite time cosuming because the original list is like that:

filename1/foldername1
filename2/foldername2

i have to make that list into a long chain.........

nvm · 06-13-2005, 04:38 AM

One quicker way might be to use perl to change the beginning of each line.

If you had the list of files:

filename1
filename2
..etc

then perl -pe 's/^/rm /' filename_with_list_of_filenames

(note the space after the rm) will add 'rm ' to the start of each line.

If you were to make the resulting modified file executable with chmod +x filename_with_list_of_filenames
running ./filename_with_list_of_filenames will get rid of them all.

nvm · 06-13-2005, 04:51 AM

Oops, my apologies that perl line just displays the modified text, to redirect it back to it's original location change it to:

Code:

perl -pe 's/^/rm /' filename_with_list_of_filenames > filename_with_list_of_filenames

MikeZila · 06-13-2005, 05:05 AM

That's some nice Perl-ing. I'm going to save that in case I ever need it for this purpose.

Glad the sollution worked for you. Remember; work smarter, not harder.

theYinYeti · 06-13-2005, 06:12 AM

Let's say that you ran:

Code:

tar xjf /a/file.tar.bz2

You want to remove all files extracted by this command. You'd do (in the same directory):

Code:

tar tjf /a/file.tar.bz2 | xargs /bin/rm -f

which will only remove files, and may give errors with directories; you'd then have to remove empty directories. If you know what you do, you can replace '/bin/rm -f' with '/bin/rm -rf'.

Yves.

nvm · 06-13-2005, 06:29 AM

That's much better.

tomj88 · 06-13-2005, 07:29 AM

Off topic, but NVM, your perl program (on my machine) would wipe over the input file, but if I did:
perl -pe 's/^/rm /' file > new_file
It worked fine, and the modified contents were in the right places. If I did:
perl -pe 's/^/rm /' file > file
It made a clean file called "file" with nothing in it. Is it something I have done?

hkl8324 · 06-13-2005, 09:14 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by theYinYeti
Let's say that you ran:

Code:

tar xjf /a/file.tar.bz2

You want to remove all files extracted by this command. You'd do (in the same directory):

Code:

tar tjf /a/file.tar.bz2 | xargs /bin/rm -f

which will only remove files, and may give errors with directories; you'd then have to remove empty directories. If you know what you do, you can replace '/bin/rm -f' with '/bin/rm -rf'.

Yves.

good info...

but can you explain why tjf and | xargs /bin/rm -f exactly works...?

(it is hard to remember something that i dont know how it works....)

thanks again...