please help with bash find / -name "*.sized.jpg" -exec rm -f {} ;

rioguia · 01-16-2010, 03:13 PM

Thanks in advance for your help. Could someone correct my bash shell command?

I am trying to delete some unneeded files that contain ".sized.jpg" in their name. The files are stored in a number of directories in my home directory. I searched the web and found a promising approach that suggests:

Code:

find / -name core -exec rm -f {} ;

I tried to adapt the command to my purpose using the following bash shell command:

Code:

find /home/user/web_photos/ -name "*.sized.jpg" -exec rm -f {} ;

I get the error message: find: missing argument to `-exec'

GrapefruiTgirl · 01-16-2010, 03:20 PM

You need a backslash "\" just before the final semicolon, so that the find command realizes that that is the end of the arguments:

Code:

find /home/user/web_photos/ -name "*.sized.jpg" -exec rm -f {} \;

gnashley · 01-16-2010, 03:21 PM

find /home/user/web_photos/ -name "*.sized.jpg" -exec rm -f {} \;
Notice the '\'.

rioguia · 01-16-2010, 03:28 PM

Thank you both. That was perfect!

Sergei Steshenko · 01-16-2010, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rioguia

Thank you both. That was perfect!

Here are two excerpts from 'man find' with line numbers:

Code:

    705        -exec command ;
    706               Execute command; true if 0 status is  returned.   All  following
    707               arguments to find are taken to be arguments to the command until
    708               an argument consisting of `;' is encountered.  The  string  `{}'
    709               is  replaced by the current file name being processed everywhere
    710               it occurs in the arguments to the command, not just in arguments
    711               where  it  is alone, as in some versions of find.  Both of these
    712               constructions might need to be escaped (with a `\') or quoted to
    713               protect them from expansion by the shell.  See the EXAMPLES sec-
    714               tion for examples of the use of the -exec option.  The specified
    715               command  is run once for each matched file.  The command is exe-
    716               cuted in the starting directory.   There are  unavoidable  secu-
    717               rity  problems  surrounding  use of the -exec action; you should
    718               use the -execdir option instead.

Code:

   1334        Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and  delete  them,
   1335        processing  filenames  in  such a way that file or directory names con-
   1336        taining single or double quotes, spaces or newlines are correctly  han-
   1337        dled.   The  -name  test  comes before the -type test in order to avoid
   1338        having to call stat(2) on every file.
   1339
   1340
   1341        find . -type f -exec file '{}' \;