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Old 06-13-2002, 08:32 PM   #1
keirobyn
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bash script to rm all files in a dir


I want to write a short bash script to rm all files in a directory. I have a couple of directories that have too many files to use wild cards (!, returns a 'too many arguements error), which is hosing up my machine. So, I want to use a bash script that deletes them one at a time (perhaps a repeating loop that deletes the first file in the directory, the most recent file or whatever). My bash skills are negligible. Can anyone suggest a short script?

I posted something similar in the Newbie sections, which has a description of the more general problem.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...716#post103716

Thanks!
 
Old 06-14-2002, 07:49 AM   #2
kahuna
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Perl or Pyhton could do this also. One algorithm would be:

1. Get a directory listing into an array or list.
2. Filter out any file you do not want deleted (namely . and ..)
3. iterate over the array and exec the rm command for each filename.

Pretty simple to do.
 
Old 06-14-2002, 08:26 AM   #3
acid_kewpie
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or just say

for i in *
do
rm -f $i
done
 
Old 06-14-2002, 11:56 AM   #4
sewer_monkey
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How about a cron job that "rm -rf /whatever/directory/you/want/whatever_wildcard_you_want*" every once in a while? Any ideas why this doesn't work? Why are you getting the "too many arguments" error?

Last edited by sewer_monkey; 06-14-2002 at 11:58 AM.
 
Old 06-17-2002, 04:04 AM   #5
Mik
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I think the easiest would be:

cd /directory_to_clean && ls | xargs rm -f
 
Old 06-27-2002, 02:26 PM   #6
amp2000
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I havent read your other thread but if I wanted to delete everything in a directory, I would use "rm -rf /dir" & that removes EVERYTHING in the /dir, the r switch tell's it to recursively travel through the directory & f tell's it to force so your not repeatedly asked , are you sure?

HTH
 
Old 07-01-2002, 07:25 AM   #7
carlcromer
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Cool

If you want to remove all file just do "rm -Rf *" and that will remove them all from the current directory recursively down.

If you want to decide on a file by file basis just add an "-i"
 
Old 07-19-2002, 04:31 AM   #8
edreddy
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Hi ! keirobyn,
try something like this, hope it work out.

use -i switch with rm command with in loop. like this :
rm -i <file-name> or with wild card entries as follws in the script.

rm -i <directory-name>/*
it will propmt you each time before deleting a file and you can decide whether or not to delete that particular file.

bye
Dhananajaya
 
Old 07-19-2002, 07:53 AM   #9
Mik
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The whole point was that he couldn't use wildcards because he had to many files. So with or without the -i options it wouldn't work either way.
But this is a very old thread so I'm sure he's got his solution by now.
 
  


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