bash - Delete Directories That Don't Match a Certain Name

latimer · 12-27-2011, 04:03 PM

I am trying to making a cron job that deletes all directories and their contents in a certain directory which don't have a specific name. I am using a binary which generates a bunch of timestamped folders in /var/run/amplify/ and there is no way to turn it off. There is a folder called "temp" in /var/run/amplify/ that needs to be kept, but all the other directories and their contents I want to be wiped by the cron daily. How would I go about doing this? Thanks!

AlucardZero · 12-27-2011, 04:06 PM

Use the find command

latimer · 12-27-2011, 04:13 PM

How do I find the opposite? I tried find /var/run/amplify/ -name ! temp and find !(/var/run/amplify/ -name temp) but neither worked.

Telengard · 12-27-2011, 07:29 PM

This works in Bash if extglob is enabled.

Code:

blah$ ls
apples  grapes  oranges  peaches  penguins
blah$ rm -R !(penguins) #protect the penguins
blah$ ls
penguins
blah$

http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/man...ttern-Matching

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pattern Matching - Bash Reference Manual

!(pattern-list)
Matches anything except one of the given patterns.

From your post it looks like you're treating the symptom, and not the problem. Hope you can find some way to tame that bad binary.

Telengard · 12-27-2011, 07:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by latimer

How do I find the opposite? I tried find /var/run/amplify/ -name ! temp and find !(/var/run/amplify/ -name temp) but neither worked.

Try this:

Code:

find /var/run/amplify/ \! -name temp

This will find all files in and below the /var/run/amplify/ directory which are not named temp. If you only want directories, then try this:

Code:

find /var/run/amplify/ -type d \! -name temp

By default, find will recurse into all sub-directories of /var/run/amplify/. If you want to limit find to only act on names in /var/run/amplify/, then try this:

Code:

find /var/run/amplify/ -maxdepth 1 -type d \! -name temp

For the record, I would not want something like the running automatically. I don't recommend putting this in cron.