Deleting many files from a directory

Deleting many files from a directory

[Mário Gamito]

Hi,

When we have too many files in a directory, let's say thousands, we 
cannot rm -f * on them. The system says there are too many files.
So, one must go through a tedious process of deleting by parts.

Is there a way to wipe them all at onde ?

Thank you.

Warm Regards.
-- 
Mário Gamito
Administração de sistemas e desenvolvimento
Netual - Multimédia e Telecomunicações, Lda.
Rua João Afonso, Nº1
3800-198 Aveiro - Portugal
Tel. +351 234 371 431 / Fax. +351 234 371 438
E-mail: gamito@netual.pt
www.netual.pt
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Re: Deleting many files from a directory

[Mark Nipper]

On 23 Dec 2004, M?rio Gamito wrote:
> When we have too many files in a directory, let's say thousands, we 
> cannot rm -f * on them. The system says there are too many files.
> So, one must go through a tedious process of deleting by parts.
> 
> Is there a way to wipe them all at onde ?

	Multiple ways to do it really, but one would be:
---
find /path/to/delete -exec rm -f \{\} \;

-- 
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Re: Deleting many files from a directory

[harry_b]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 792 bytes --]

Hi,

--On Thursday, December 23, 2004 09:40:12 +0000 Mário Gamito 
<gamito@netual.pt> wrote:

> When we have too many files in a directory, let's say thousands, we
> cannot rm -f * on them. The system says there are too many files.
> So, one must go through a tedious process of deleting by parts.
>
> Is there a way to wipe them all at onde ?

To remove all files in all subdirectories do:

find /path/ -type f | xargs -n 50 rm

Thats much faster than 'find ...-exec...'

Cheers,
Harry

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Re: Deleting many files from a directory

[Mark Nipper]

On 23 Dec 2004, harry_b@mm.st wrote:
> To remove all files in all subdirectories do:
> 
> find /path/ -type f | xargs -n 50 rm
> 
> Thats much faster than 'find ...-exec...'

	That can get a little strange though if files have spaces
or other strange characters in their names.

-- 
Mark Nipper                                                e-contacts:
4475 Carter Creek Parkway                           nipsy@bitgnome.net
Apartment 724                               http://nipsy.bitgnome.net/
Bryan, Texas, 77802-4481           AIM/Yahoo: texasnipsy ICQ: 66971617
(979)575-3193                                      MSN: nipsy@tamu.edu

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Re: Deleting many files from a directory

[Hal Wigoda]

do a loop

for i in filenames*
do
rm $i
done

On Dec 23, 2004, at 3:40 AM, Mário Gamito wrote:

> Hi,
>
> When we have too many files in a directory, let's say thousands, we 
> cannot rm -f * on them. The system says there are too many files.
> So, one must go through a tedious process of deleting by parts.
>
> Is there a way to wipe them all at onde ?
>
> Thank you.
>
> Warm Regards.
> -- 
> Mário Gamito
> Administração de sistemas e desenvolvimento
> Netual - Multimédia e Telecomunicações, Lda.
> Rua João Afonso, Nº1
> 3800-198 Aveiro - Portugal
> Tel. +351 234 371 431 / Fax. +351 234 371 438
> E-mail: gamito@netual.pt
> www.netual.pt
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-admin" 
> in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>
>

-----------------
Hal Wigoda

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Re: Deleting many files from a directory

[John Julian]

your can also try:

for f in a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
do rm ${f}*
done

you might need to repeat for capitals and numbers.



On Sat, 25 Dec 2004, Gustavo Guillermo Perez wrote:

> El Jueves 23 Diciembre 2004 15:40, Mário Gamito escribió:
> > Hi,
> >
> > When we have too many files in a directory, let's say thousands, we
> > cannot rm -f * on them. The system says there are too many files.
> > So, one must go through a tedious process of deleting by parts.
> >
> > Is there a way to wipe them all at onde ?
> >
> > Thank you.
> >
> > Warm Regards.
> if is Just a directory, call rm with the name of the directory
> like that
> rm -rf /dirname
> where the r is for recursive, sometimes find hangs with more than 65535 files 
> in a single directory in some older versions (I still using some ones).
> 
> If you have a lot of folders with a lot of files, then:
> 
> find -type d | while read dir; do rm -rf "$dir" ; done
> 
> "" in $dir is for names with spaces.
> 
> 
> Mery Christmas
> 
> 

-- 
John Julian
Computer Geek
cell: 248-376-6364
pager: 800-621-4951

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Re: Deleting many files from a directory

[Gustavo Guillermo Perez]

El Jueves 23 Diciembre 2004 15:40, Mário Gamito escribió:
> Hi,
>
> When we have too many files in a directory, let's say thousands, we
> cannot rm -f * on them. The system says there are too many files.
> So, one must go through a tedious process of deleting by parts.
>
> Is there a way to wipe them all at onde ?
>
> Thank you.
>
> Warm Regards.
if is Just a directory, call rm with the name of the directory
like that
rm -rf /dirname
where the r is for recursive, sometimes find hangs with more than 65535 files 
in a single directory in some older versions (I still using some ones).

If you have a lot of folders with a lot of files, then:

find -type d | while read dir; do rm -rf "$dir" ; done

"" in $dir is for names with spaces.


Mery Christmas

-- 
-------
Gustavo Guillermo Perez
Compunauta uLinux
www.userver.tk

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Re: Deleting many files from a directory

[Glynn Clements]

Mark Nipper wrote:

> > To remove all files in all subdirectories do:
> > 
> > find /path/ -type f | xargs -n 50 rm
> > 
> > Thats much faster than 'find ...-exec...'
> 
> 	That can get a little strange though if files have spaces
> or other strange characters in their names.

Using:

	find /path -type -f -print0 | xargs -0 -n 50 rm

will cope with filenames which contain whitespace.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn@gclements.plus.com>

Re: Deleting many files from a directory

[Glynn Clements]

Hal Wigoda wrote:

> do a loop
> 
> for i in filenames*
> do
> rm $i
> done

Put quotes around the variable, i.e.:

	rm "$i"

otherwise it won't handle filenames which contain whitespace.

Shell variables should always be quoted unless you actually want
values which contain whitespace to be split into multiple words.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn@gclements.plus.com>