I can find ./ -type d -name "Debug" -exec rm -f {} + to delete the fold and content.
My question is: How to fine all "Debug" folders and ONLY delete the content and Not the folder?
#!/bin/bash
find . -type d -name "Debug" -print | xargs -I% find % -maxdepth 1 -type f -delete
the first find lists all Debug directories
xargs defines the "%" symbol as what is replaced by the received stdin. You will often see -I{} for xargs, but I chose another string since you might need {} in the find. Any char will do.
the second find, in directory "%" (so here one of the Debug directories received from the first find), deletes all files under that directory.
-maxdepth 1 is used in the second find to make sure it only deletes the files in the current Debug directory, and does not recursively deletes all files.
Related
I'm trying to work out a command which deletes sql files older than 15 days.
The find part is working but not the rm.
rm -f | find -L /usr/www2/bar/htdocs/foo/rsync/httpdocs/db_backups -type f \( -name '*.sql' \) -mtime +15
It kicks out a list of exactly the files I want deleted but is not deleting them. The paths are correct.
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dIPRrvW] file ...
unlink file
/usr/www2/bar/htdocs/foo/rsync/httpdocs/db_backups/20120601.backup.sql
...
/usr/www2/bar/htdocs/foo/rsync/httpdocs/db_backups/20120610.backup.sql
What am I doing wrong?
You are actually piping rm's output to the input of find. What you want is to use the output of find as arguments to rm:
find -type f -name '*.sql' -mtime +15 | xargs rm
xargs is the command that "converts" its standard input into arguments of another program, or, as they more accurately put it on the man page,
build and execute command lines from standard input
Note that if file names can contain whitespace characters, you should correct for that:
find -type f -name '*.sql' -mtime +15 -print0 | xargs -0 rm
But actually, find has a shortcut for this: the -delete option:
find -type f -name '*.sql' -mtime +15 -delete
Please be aware of the following warnings in man find:
Warnings: Don't forget that the find command line is evaluated
as an expression, so putting -delete first will make find try to
delete everything below the starting points you specified. When
testing a find command line that you later intend to use with
-delete, you should explicitly specify -depth in order to avoid
later surprises. Because -delete implies -depth, you cannot
usefully use -prune and -delete together.
P.S. Note that piping directly to rm isn't an option, because rm doesn't expect filenames on standard input. What you are currently doing is piping them backwards.
find /usr/www/bar/htdocs -mtime +15 -exec rm {} \;
Will select files in /usr/www/bar/htdocs older than 15 days and remove them.
Another simpler method is to use locate command. Then, pipe the result to xargs.
For example,
locate file | xargs rm
Use xargs to pass arguments, with the option -rd '\n' to ignore spaces in names:
"${command}" | xargs -rd '\n' rm
Include --force if you want to also remove read only files.
Assuming you aren't in the directory containing the *.sql backup files:
find /usr/www2/bar/htdocs/foo/rsync/httpdocs/db_backups/*.sql -mtime +15 -exec rm -v {} \;
The -v option above is handy it will verbosely output which files are being deleted as they are removed.
I like to list the files that will be deleted first to be sure. E.g:
find /usr/www2/bar/htdocs/foo/rsync/httpdocs/db_backups/*.sql -mtime +15 -exec ls -lrth {} \;
I want to copy all the log files from a directory which does not contain log files, but it contains other subdirectories with log files. These subdirectories also contain other subdirectories, so I need something recursive.
I tried
cp -R *.log /destination
But it doesn't work because the first directory does not contains log files. The response can be also a loop in bash.
find /path/to/logdir -type f -name "*.log" |xargs -I {} cp {} /path/to/destinationdir
Explanation:
find searches recursively
-type f tells you to search for files
-name specifies the name pattern
xargs executes commands
-I {} indicates an argument substitution symbol
Another version without xargs:
find /path/to/logdir -type f -name '* .log' -exec cp '{}' /path/to/destinationdir \;
What I want:
In a bash script: Find all files in current directory that contain a certain string "teststring" and cop them into a subfolder "./testfolder"
Found this to find the filenames which im looking for
find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 grep -l "teststring"
..and this to copy found files to another folder (here selecting by strings in filename):
find . -type f -iname "stringinfilename" -exec cp {} ./testfolder/ \;
Whats the best way to combine both commands to achieve what I described at the top?
Just let find do both:
find . -name subdir -prune -o -type f -exec \
grep -q teststring "{}" \; -exec cp "{}" subdir \;
Note that things like this are much easier if you don't try to add to the directory you're working in. In other words, write to a sibling dir instead of writing to a subdirectory. If you want to wind up with the data in a subdir, mv it when you're done. That way, you don't have to worry about the prune (ie, you don't have to worry about find descending into the subdir and attempting to duplicate the work).
I have a Linux-System where some users put files with ftp in a Directory. In this Directory there are sub-directories which the users can create. Now I need a script that searches for all files in those subdirectories and moves them in a single Directory (for backup). The Problem: The Sub directories shouldn´t be removed.
the directory for the users is /files/media/documents/
and the files have to be moved in the Directory /files/dump/. I don´t care about files in /files/media/documents/, they are already handled by another script.
I already tried this script:
for dir in /files/media/documents/
do
find "$dir/" -iname '*' -print0 | xargs -0 mv -t /files/dump/
done
Instead of iterating, you could just use find. In man-page there is a "-type" option documented, so for moving only files you could do:
find "/files/media/documents/" -type f -print0 | xargs -0 mv -t /files/dump/
You also won't like to find files in /files/media/documents/, but all sub-directories? Simply add "-mindepth":
find "/files/media/documents/" -type f -mindepth 1 -print0 | xargs -0 mv -t /files/dump/
Alternatively you could also use "-exec" to skip a second command (xargs):
find "/files/media/documents/" -type f -mindepth 1 -exec mv {} /files/dump/ \;
I want to copy the recently updated multiple file into another directory.
I am having 1.xml,2.xml,3.xml.... in this directory recently someone updated file or added new file into the directory,So i want to copy those files into the destination directory ..Its like synchronization of 2 directories.
For that I have tried below commend
find home/deployment/server/services/ -type f -mtime 1 | xargs cp /home/application/
and below one also
find home/deployment/server/services/ -type f -mtime 1 -exec cp /home/application/
I am not getting any file into destination after updating 1.xml file,So I have added new file 4.xml even that also not updating in destination directory.
How to process recently updated or newly added multiple files.
Thanks in advance.
Short answer:
use xargs to mv the "find" directory into another directory
Long answer: As I recall (not tested) for exec syntax is
find . -type f --mtime 1 -exec cp {} /destination/path/ +
"{}" is an argument which came from command "find"
For xargs
find . -type f --mtime 1 | xargs -0 -I {} cp {} /destination/path/
I do this often but use \; instead of + and usually -cnewer rather than -mtime.
\; executes the cp command on files individually instead of as a group.
+ executes as a group with as many paths as xterm will take. It may do this multiple time if there are a lot of files.
the \ in front of the ; option is required or bash will think it is the end of the command.
find ./ -mtime -1 -exec cp {} /path/ \; -print
Use the -print at the end to get a list of the files that were copied.