delete all files that are "5 lined" ---urgent---

raghu123 · 08-12-2008, 07:59 AM

Dear all,

i want to delete all files in my directory that have 5 lines ......
(means all files that are 5 lined, but not empty files)

i used for loop inside wic i gav wc -l and then if it is 5 then remove it......but some silly syntax error.....
i knw that we can use sed for this.....

Kindly suggest and give the proper code......

burschik · 08-12-2008, 08:15 AM

Code:

wc -l * | sed -n 's/ \+5 //p' | xargs rm

, for example

raghu123 · 08-12-2008, 11:07 PM

thanks for the command......cud u plz suggest a command to find all files in the directory having 5 lines .....

Quote:

Originally Posted by burschik

Code:

wc -l * | sed -n 's/ \+5 //p' | xargs rm

, for example

pixellany · 08-12-2008, 11:22 PM

My guess is that you want a loop with the general form:

for filename in `ls`; do <put the test here>; done ##the test will use $filename

If the directory has directories in it, then you would also need a test statement to ignore them.

kenoshi · 08-13-2008, 12:29 AM

burschik already did.

Just remove the | xargs rm in his example.

raghu123 · 08-13-2008, 12:41 AM

i am using that sed command wc -l * | sed -n 's/ \+5 //p'
but my entries are around 3000.....so its giving arguement list too long......
i als tried givin it in loop......

so kindly suggest

Mr. C. · 08-13-2008, 12:57 AM

find . -type f | xargs wc -l | sed -n 's/ \+5 //p'

My wc does not output a + char in front of values, so I use:

find . -type f | xargs wc -l | sed -n 's/ 5 //p'

raghu123 · 08-13-2008, 01:05 AM

Thanq......its working good

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. C.

find . -type f | xargs wc -l | sed -n 's/ \+5 //p'

My wc does not output a + char in front of values, so I use:

find . -type f | xargs wc -l | sed -n 's/ 5 //p'

kenoshi · 08-13-2008, 01:09 AM

I thought he used \+5 because of BRE to get rid of multiple spaces? To use s/ +5 //p he would need to use -r flag correct?

Mr. C. · 08-13-2008, 01:13 AM

Oh, right! I've forgotten about that silly notation. My sed's old, I'm afraid, and doesn't support that. Thanks for the reminder.

In extended REs, I can do:

$ echo 'a b' | sed -E 's/ +//'
ab

but not either of:
$ echo 'a b' | sed 's/ \+//'
a b
$ echo 'a b' | sed 's/ +//'
a b

Mr. C. · 08-13-2008, 01:27 AM

Ok, I've let myself get a bit confused. I thought I recall \+, but I must be mistaken. BREs have no support for the + char (1 or more chars). Extended REs provide + support, and no \ is required.

The 5 char is simple the output of wc, btw., not part of any metacharacter or quantifier. The sample code in post #2 does not work for me on BSD or Linux.

raghu123 · 08-13-2008, 02:04 AM

everthinng s fine, but i am gettin bugs due to the number of files I have.....

Dear burschik, Mr.C, kenoshi....
i acknowledge your help, but for finding the 5lined files and then removing them, i hav around 3000 files to check and its priting a bug like arguement list too long......so i am using a loop to gind and remove....
plz suggest the proper code for this....
find . -type f | xargs wc -l | sed -n 's/ 5 //p' is working fine...but to remove the same, how??

in loop??

raghu123 · 08-13-2008, 05:58 AM

find . -type f | xargs wc -l | sed -n 's/ 5 //p' | xargs rm -f

is the proper code!!!

Mr. C. · 08-13-2008, 07:36 AM

Most excellent!

kenoshi · 08-13-2008, 12:49 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong...I thought with BREs meta characters such as . * ^ $ doesn't require an escape, while all others do...and EREs you don't need to escape any of the metas.

Anyway, grats raghu123, nothing like figuring things out yourself