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Old 06-20-2008, 03:00 AM   #1
linuq
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Registered: Jun 2008
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How to delete files tat contains a specific word??


Hi All,

I am new to linux.
I have a folder tat contains a lot of text files (more than 1000).
Some of these files contains similar word example: "error"
I need to delete these files.
My question is, is there a command/script that i can use to perform this?

Any help is appreciated.

Last edited by linuq; 06-20-2008 at 03:08 AM.
 
Old 06-20-2008, 03:22 AM   #2
nx5000
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Code:
grep -lw error * | xargs rm
 
Old 06-20-2008, 03:28 AM   #3
David the H.
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Be careful with that command though. It will delete everything with the word "error" in it, no questions asked. You should first run the grep alone ("grep -lw error *") to list the files it's going to affect before you delete them.
 
Old 06-29-2008, 11:26 PM   #4
linuq
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Thx for the info.
But when i run on folder with 15000 files i get 'Argument list too long' error.
Any idea why?
 
Old 06-30-2008, 12:12 AM   #5
chrism01
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That's because the shell expands the '*' to 15,000 args before grep sees it.
Try a loop instead:
Code:
for file in `ls`
do
    grep -lw error $file>dev/null
    if [[ $? -eq 0 ]]
    then
        #matched
        echo $file
        #rm $file
    fi
done
don't activate the 'rm' until you are sure you are happy with the file matching
 
  


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