sorting through large file directories

n_hendrick · 05-07-2007, 01:38 PM

hey all....just wanted to ask a stupid question. I have a directory thats full of duplicate files with different names. Most of the files have been labeled with like beta1 beta2 tags. I want to wipe out all the betas in my directory and just be left with the standard filename. I could go through in nautilus and manually delete each name but I have about 20,000 files. As you see this would take all day. I'm wandering if there is an easier way to sort the files out of the directory that I want to keep (the files without tags) then just delete the rest....

Quakeboy02 · 05-07-2007, 01:41 PM

Here's what I'd do just to make sure I didn't lose anything I wanted to keep:

Code:

mkdir junk
mv beta* junk
ls

Check the result of ls. Move any additional files you want to delete to junk. Once you have everything that you want to keep in the current directory, then run:

Code:

rm -r junk

kaz2100 · 05-07-2007, 01:48 PM

Hey n/hendrick... just wanted to reply a stupid answer. You have a directory thats full of duplicate files with different names. Most of the files have been labeled with like beta 1 beta 2 tags. You want to wipe out all the betas in your directory and just be left with the standard filename. You could go through in nautilus and manually delete each name but You have about 20,000 files. As you see this would take all day. You're wondering if there is an easier way to sort the files out of the directory that You want to keep (the files without tags) then just delete the rest....

Code:

find /your/path/to/directory/with/20000/files -name \*beta\* -exec mv {} /your/path/to/directory/to/delete/ \;

Then take 2 days to check that you do not need these files in /your/path/to/directory/to/delete/ and delete them.

Happy Penguins!

Centinul · 05-07-2007, 01:51 PM

This may work:

Code:

find /<some>/<directory> -print | xargs grep beta1 | xargs rm -i

**WARNING** This hasn't been tested.

HTH,

Centinul

n_hendrick · 05-08-2007, 12:08 PM

Thanks a load guys that just saved me a day of work....thanks. Hey kaz I'm kinda familiar with shell scripting what does the \ in the elfacto do for the command? also I was curious about the {} and the ending argument \; You don't have to explain it to me I was just curious....but hey thanks again.