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Old 01-14-2005, 05:05 PM   #1
jimwelc
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Question recurrsive delete of files


Hello,

I am very new to bash scripting and I am trying to recursivly deletes files within a directory:

Basically I have a directory and I would like to delete all the abc*.txt files
In my script I attempt to do the following:


#=========================
TESTDIR="/home/test"
if [ -d TESTDIR ]; then
rm -f "$TESTDIR/abc*.txt"
fi
#=========================

Althouth this exact "rm" command works fine within a terminal window, it will not work within my script.

Any suggestions or help will be greatly appreciate.


Best Regards,
-Jim
 
Old 01-14-2005, 05:08 PM   #2
wolfe2554
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-r is recurssive so rm -rf /home would remove home and everything else on that branch of the tree. But you must be super user to delete dirs with rm otherwise rmdir.
 
Old 01-14-2005, 05:11 PM   #3
jimwelc
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Hello wolfe2554,

Thats for the reply, but do you know a way of deleting wildcard files:

Such as all /home/abc*.txt

-Jim
 
Old 01-14-2005, 05:14 PM   #4
Dark_Helmet
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My suggestion:
find /home/test -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "abc*.txt" -exec rm {} \;

Check out man find for details on what the switches/arguments do.
 
Old 01-15-2005, 05:13 AM   #5
jschiwal
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Sorry, I originally misunderstood the question. So please ignore this edited post.

Last edited by jschiwal; 01-15-2005 at 05:17 AM.
 
Old 01-15-2005, 05:54 AM   #6
jeickal
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jimwelc, further to the "man" command, if you want a quicker simpler help with a specific command try this one:
Code:
rm --help
The --help works with alot of commands and is less... verbal... than the man which is often confusing for bash newcomers
 
  


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