Hi

I'm fairly new to linux and have a specific requirement. I need a command or script to remove (delete) files with a tilde (~) anywhere in their filename, recursively through all subfolders.

Is this possible?

I'm thinking along the lines of this command, which renames all *.php4 files to *.php in the current and all subfolders (given to me by an ex colleague):
Could this be modified to look for a "~" anywhere in the filename and if any are found, remove the file?

Even if you can't help, any ideas are welcome. Thanks.

Use find and xargs.

Try this first:

find . -type f -name "*~*" | xargs echo "rm -f "

If it lists all the files with "~" in the name, remove "echo" as in:
find . -type f -name "*~*" | xargs rm -f

I have not try it, but should work

Although it does vary from program to program, it is usual that backup files only have the tidle at the end of the file name - not anywhere in the name. I am assuming that with these commands, but you can add another * after the tilde if you like.

Better to use the -print0 option to find and the -0 option to xargs to make sure you don't get problems with file names which contain spaces, tabs, or new line characters.
If that command shows only files you are sure you want to remove, you can change the xargs part to do the actual removal:

Thank you very much.

I have tried the above examples and can confirm they work perfectly.

This removed all files containing a ~ anywhere in the filename, in the current folder and all subfolders:
I can run this one as a shell script as it allows me to enter the folder path:
Combining the two I have:
This is for cleaning up after a backup script. The script appends the date/time to the existing file, so backing up test.php gives:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9 Dec 13 09:59 test.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4 Dec 13 09:50 test.php~2007-12-13_09:59

which leaves me with a valuable folder of all historical files in case of errors.