[SOLVED] Syntax question for a command within a bash script

kaplan71 · 10-03-2012, 12:26 PM

Hello --

I have been tasked with creating a script that will check a directory for files that are older than a certain age, and upon finding them, have the files in question removed from the directory.

My plan is to use the find command with the mtime option, and pipe the results to a file. The syntax that I had in mind is the following:

Code:

find -mtime +7 > /tmp/olderthansevendays.txt

The next step that I had in mind was to use the rm command to reference the text file, and remove those files listed from the directory.

My question is what would be the correct syntax to accomplish this?

Thanks.

TobiSGD · 10-03-2012, 12:38 PM

You can have that much easier. Just use find's -delete option:

Code:

 find -mtime +7 -delete

For more info have a look at

Code:

man find

kaplan71 · 10-04-2012, 02:28 PM

Hello --

Thanks for your reply. I will include the find command with the delete option in the script. As a follow-up, I need to have the script do the following:

1. Change to a specific directory. The directory in question contains a series of subfolders all of which contain another folder called pdf
2. Change to each subfolder within the first directory, and then to the pdf folder within each subfolder.
3. Run the find command with the delete option on files within the pdf folder.
4. Repeat this process for all subfolders that are located within the directory mentioned in item 1.

What would the syntax be here?

Thanks.

TobiSGD · 10-04-2012, 03:14 PM

If I understand you right you have one main folder (I will call it mainf), which contains several folders, which in turn contain a folder called pdf, in which you want to delete all files older than 7 days.
I would handle that with a for loop, something like this:

Code:

for searchdir in /path/to/mainf/*/pdf
do
    find searchdir -mtime +7 -delete
done

This should work, but I have not tested it, so that is up to you.

kaplan71 · 10-09-2012, 12:53 PM

Hello --

I came up with a script, and the syntax that I am using for the find command is as follows:

Code:

find searchdir -mtime +10 -delete

The problem that I am running into, when I execute the script, is the following:

Quote:

find: invalid predicate `-delete'
find: invalid predicate `-delete'
find: invalid predicate `-delete'
find: invalid predicate `-delete'
find: invalid predicate `-delete'

The version of find as well as the operating system system in question are as follows:

Quote:

GNU find version 4.1.20
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 (Nahant Update 7)

If the delete option is not available, how can remove the directories on the fly?

Thanks.

TobiSGD · 10-09-2012, 01:10 PM

I don't now if the version of find in RHEL 4 (you should really upgrade that if you don't have an extended support contract) supports the -delete option, but you should be able to use the -exec option:

Code:

find searchdir -mtime +10 -exec rm '{}' ;\

Keep in mind that this will remove files only, if you want to additionally delete folders add the -r option to the rm command.

kaplan71 · 10-09-2012, 02:29 PM

Hello --

I modified the command syntax to read as follows:

Code:

find searchdir -mtime +10 -exec rm '{}' ;\

When I run the script now, the following error messages appear on-screen:

Quote:

find: missing argument to `-exec'
find: missing argument to `-exec'
find: missing argument to `-exec'
find: missing argument to `-exec'
find: missing argument to `-exec'

What am I missing here?

TobiSGD · 10-09-2012, 02:40 PM

Sorry, I have a typo in that line, it should be

Code:

find searchdir -mtime +10 -exec rm '{}' \;

kaplan71 · 10-09-2012, 02:46 PM

This thing is coming up with every excuse not to work...

Here is the script in full:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

# The purpose of this script is to go through the various
# photon clinics, and check the patient directory/pdf folders
# for any pdf files that are older than seven, 7, days.
# If there is a file that meets this criterium, it is removed
# from the folder.

# The series of for loops shown below will go through every clinic,
# patient folder, and pdf subfolder, and utilize the find command.

for searchdir in /CMS/xiodata/test/*/pdf
do
find searchdir -mtime +10 -exec rm '{}' \;
done

When the script is run, the latest error that appears on-screen is the following:

Quote:

find: searchdir: No such file or directory
find: searchdir: No such file or directory
find: searchdir: No such file or directory
find: searchdir: No such file or directory
find: searchdir: No such file or directory

TobiSGD · 10-09-2012, 04:32 PM

You missed the dollar sign, the line should be

Code:

find $searchdir -mtime +10 -exec rm '{}' \;

kaplan71 · 10-09-2012, 07:26 PM

Hello --

Once I inserted the dollar sign into the line in question, the script ran without issue.

Thanks to everyone for the help.

TobiSGD · 10-09-2012, 07:38 PM

Nice to hear that it works now. Please mark this thread as solved using the thread tools at the top of the thread.