Date: 06 Nov 2002 14:38:40 -0500 From: "Alex(ander Sendzimir)" <alex@battleface.com> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: simple find command Message-ID: <1036611521.309.20.camel@prometheus> In-Reply-To: <200211061124.25334.mbettinger@championelevators.com> References: <200211061124.25334.mbettinger@championelevators.com>
index | next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail
Matt,
It's unclear from your post whether you mean to find files that
*contain* "foo" or files where "foo" is in the filename. Here are the
two scenarios acted out.
[1] Remove files that contain "foo".
cd directory/where/files/reside
grep -r -i foo ./*
cd'ing into where the files are is not strictly necessary. I like to
do this for safety reasons if I mistype. Otherwise you may place the
directory at the end of the grep command line as
grep -r -i foo /directory/where/files/reside
Do the resultant files meet your expectations?
Check this before deleting them. It might be
safer to move them to a holding directory first.
Then delete them when you're beyond any quivering
feelings of doubt.
grep -r -i foo ./* | xargs rm -v
I'm assuming there might be subdirectories where the files are. If
not or you don't want to get into them, then remove "-r" in the grep
command.
[2] Remove files that have "foo" in their filename.
find /directory/where/files/reside -name "*foo*" -print \
-exec rm {} \;
Again, the caveat about checking your results before deleting is
repeated here. The slash at the end of the line above (after -print)
is because the line is too long in this email. This is the shell escape
for line continuation. You can experiment with it.
Perhaps this clears up some of the other posts.
Alex
On Wed, 2002-11-06 at 12:24, Matthew Bettinger wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Hello,
I am having a bit of trouble with the find command. I am a novice in its use
so maybe someone can help me out here.
I have a list of files (hundreds) in directory . and need to search through
and delete every file that contains the word foo.
Some of my failed attemps...
find . -exec grep -i "foo" -ok -delete {} \;
find . -exec grep -l 'foo' -ok -delete {}\;
find . -exec grep "foo" {}\; | xargs rm
Thanks for any help.
Matt
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (FreeBSD)
iD8DBQE9yVBIXG7+MmNwciURAr1VAKCJWZF87EfqAk8hLdnj/prlZwpVDwCbBrAt
Lq+3Zv2Ocd4EmxAXfdhp1OY=
=HNAV
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
--
A L E X A N D E R S E N D Z I M I R Battleface Computing
Custom Computing - Linux & Free BSD - C, Perl, Python, WWW
info@battleface.com | 802 863 5502 | Colchester, VT 05446
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
help
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?1036611521.309.20.camel>