Run command against text file

vonedaddy · 12-31-2007, 03:30 PM

I recently copied my data over to my linux box from my windows box. I have all these Thumbs.db files all over the place now.

So I did this:

find / -name Thumbs.db > thumbs.txt

Now I have a text file with the location of every Thumbs.db file. Now I want to delete all those files, how can I run an rm command against the entries in this file?

kiley_rodgers · 12-31-2007, 03:43 PM

find / -name Thumbs.db -exec rm {} \;

you can also do
find / -name Thumbs.db -exec rm -i {} \;
if you would ilke it to ask for confirmation for each deletion.... change filename as needed.....

vonedaddy · 12-31-2007, 03:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kiley_rodgers

find / -name Thumbs.db -exec rm {} \;

you can also do
find / -name Thumbs.db -exec rm -i {} \;
if you would ilke it to ask for confirmation for each deletion.... change filename as needed.....

Thats also some great info, but just for kicks, lets say I wanted to run it against the file I have already?

David the H. · 12-31-2007, 04:18 PM

Use a simple 'for' loop:

for f in $(cat thumbs.txt); do rm $f; done

This reads the contents of thumbs.txt (use '$()' to get the output of a command, 'cat' in this case) one line at a time into variable f, then runs the rm command on the contents of the variable ($f), and loops back to do the next line.

I suggest you remember the 'for' loop syntax. It's probably the most useful bash command you can learn.

vonedaddy · 12-31-2007, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David the H.

Use a simple 'for' loop:

for f in $(cat thumbs.txt); do rm $f; done

This reads the contents of thumbs.txt (use '$()' to get the output of a command, 'cat' in this case) one line at a time into variable f, then runs the rm command on the contents of the variable ($f), and loops back to do the next line.

I suggest you remember the 'for' loop syntax. It's probably the most useful bash command you can learn.

This is exactly what I was looking for thank you both! I will read up on the for syntax.
Is there a man page or website I can read, something you can suggest?

Tinkster · 12-31-2007, 07:42 PM

Aye ...
man bash
Search for loops ...

Or
http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/index.html

Cheers,
Tink

ghostdog74 · 12-31-2007, 07:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David the H.

Use a simple 'for' loop:

for f in $(cat thumbs.txt); do rm $f; done

safer with this if file names have spaces

Code:

for i in "$(cat file)".....

better still, use while loop. Eliminate the use of cat

Code:

while read line
do
 # blah 
done < file