Bash

iwitham · 01-23-2012, 11:03 AM

I have written a script that I run as a cron job that is supposed to read the files of a directory and remove those older then 48 hours. The script removes most of the files just fine except for files with spaces in their names. Here is the script:

#! /bin/bash
set -o errexit
set -o nounset

# Get a list of files that meet the critera for removal.

for file in `find /My_directory/ -type f -print0 -mtime +2`;
do rm -f "$file";
done

Can anyone explain to me what I have missed?

Iry

millgates · 01-23-2012, 11:36 AM

The problem is that bash will split each filename with spaces into multiple arguments.
Doesn't something like this work?

Code:

find /My_directory/ -type f -print0 -mtime +2 -exec rm -f {} \;

NevemTeve · 01-23-2012, 11:43 AM

Yes, it's the space in the name...

either find ... -exec rm -f {} \;
or find ... -print0 | xargs -0 rm -f

iwitham · 01-23-2012, 12:14 PM

Thans for the help. I modified my script to find /My_directory/ -type f -print0 -mtime +2 -exec rm -f{} \; and it works great.

David the H. · 01-23-2012, 12:52 PM

Please use [code][/code] tags around your code and data, to preserve formatting and to improve readability. Please do not use quote tags, colors, or other fancy formatting.

The problem with your original attempt is explained in detail here:

http://mywiki.wooledge.org/DontReadLinesWithFor
http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/001

And to be sure that you understand how the shell handles arguments and whitespace:

http://mywiki.wooledge.org/Arguments
http://mywiki.wooledge.org/WordSplitting
http://mywiki.wooledge.org/Quotes