Linux Format forums Forum Index Linux Format forums
Help, discussion, magazine feedback and more
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

File deletion problem....

 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Linux Format forums Forum Index -> Help!
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
paulm
LXF regular


Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2006 5:53 am
Posts: 216
Location: Oxfordshire, UK
PostPosted: Sat Mar 31, 2012 9:37 pm    Post subject: File deletion problem.... Reply with quote
I look after a machine which is running out of disk space. I will be replacing the existing hard drives in it whenever I can, but that may take a while. In the meantime, I've copied one (large) section of files off the machine onto a USB drive. Since these files are of historic interest rather than everyday use, getting rid of them will free up around 180 GB of space, enough to keep them going until I can change the drives.

However, I've hit a bit of a problem. I need to leave the directory structure (which is quite deeply nested and full of silly Windows names with spaces in them) intact, to avoid confusing a bit of Windows software that accesses the file areas.

I can use Midnight Commander to scroll through the areas and delete the files, but that is going to take a month of Sundays ( Smile probably literally....) to complete. Not to mention driving me crazy in the process. So.....

Is there any way I can automate the deletion of files while leaving the directory structure untouched?

Back in the days I still used OS/2, I had a utility which would recurse (sp?) through a directory structure, executing commands at each level. Can't find the source for it, and my scripting skills are somewhat limited - so far I've not found a way to kill the files without killing the directories as well.

Any suggestions?

Paul.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Dutch_Master
LXF regular


Joined: Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:49 am
Posts: 2353
PostPosted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 2:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
It's fairly simple, but does involve deleting the directory structure: do a loop which ls's every directory, then use that output as input for a new loop until you hit only file names. Save the various paths (and -names!) in a text file. Next, remove the entire dir-structure. Then, use the previously made text file to make new dirs with mkdir. You can make them recursively by using the final dir-level:
Code:
mkdir -p /path/to/final/dir/level
will do the trick and create parent-dirs, if not already existent Very Happy
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
paulm
LXF regular


Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2006 5:53 am
Posts: 216
Location: Oxfordshire, UK
PostPosted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 3:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Dutch_Master wrote:
It's fairly simple, but does involve deleting the directory structure: do a loop which ls's every directory, then use that output as input for a new loop until you hit only file names. Save the various paths (and -names!) in a text file. Next, remove the entire dir-structure. Then, use the previously made text file to make new dirs with mkdir. You can make them recursively by using the final dir-level:
Code:
mkdir -p /path/to/final/dir/level
will do the trick and create parent-dirs, if not already existent Very Happy


Smile Thanks Dutch_Master. I'll have to remember that one...

I was about to answer my own question, though whether the answer I came up with is optimum on not, I don't know.

When I asked, I suspected that the answer would be some strange incantation of find. Being a lazy sod, I've always resisted learning anything other than the simplest uses of find. But I decided I'd better do some research.

In the end, this is what I came up with:

Code:
find . -type f -exec rm {} ';'


Smile You do need to be sure you're in the right directory tree before executing that little lot. And, since the box I'm cleaning up is an SME server, rm has to be unaliased first (default in SME is alias rm='rm -i' for safety).

I tried on one of the smaller tree sections to make sure nothing was going to blow up, then ran it on the base of the tree I needed to clean. Not all that fast - took 20 minutes to run, reducing the tree from 154GB to 31MB. I suspect it probably hit the machine fairly hard as well - from my research, it seems that '-exec' executes the command for every file, and there were a lot of files. Still, I was doing the job over an SSH connection, and at this time of night, its not likely anyone else was trying to use that server.

I guess I'll have to learn the rest of find's syntax - that was a lot easier than wading through the lot with Midnight Commander.

Paul.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
nelz
Moderator


Joined: Mon Apr 04, 2005 12:52 pm
Posts: 8000
Location: Warrington, UK
PostPosted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 10:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Two tips: prefixing a command with \ tells the shell not to use the alias, so use \rm instead of rm.

As you've already found , exec runs the command once for each file. Use + instead of ; (sometimes referred to as exec+) to have find batch as many files as possibly to one invocation of the command.

Code:
find . -type f -exec \ rm "{}" +


I've also added quotes around the braces, in case any of the files have spaces in their names. It may be wise to use an absolute path instead of ., to avoid emptying the wrong directory throuh a misplaced cd.
_________________
Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
paulm
LXF regular


Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2006 5:53 am
Posts: 216
Location: Oxfordshire, UK
PostPosted: Thu Apr 05, 2012 4:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
nelz wrote:
Two tips: prefixing a command with \ tells the shell not to use the alias, so use \rm instead of rm.


Thanks. Wasn't aware of that one.

Quote:
As you've already found , exec runs the command once for each file. Use + instead of ; (sometimes referred to as exec+) to have find batch as many files as possibly to one invocation of the command.

Code:
find . -type f -exec \ rm "{}" +


I've also added quotes around the braces, in case any of the files have spaces in their names. It may be wise to use an absolute path instead of ., to avoid emptying the wrong directory throuh a misplaced cd.


Smile Great. Thanks again. I didn't have quotes around the curly braces, but it seems to have dealt with silly Windows file names (of which there were quite a few).

I'll have to do some more reading. Find certainly saved me a heap of time....

Paul.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Linux Format forums Forum Index -> Help! All times are GMT
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
Linux Format forums topic RSS feed 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group


Copyright 2011 Future Publishing, all rights reserved.


Web hosting by UKFast