From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jul 6 14:15:48 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4866016A4CE for ; Tue, 6 Jul 2004 14:15:48 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mbox.ibctech.ca (dev.eagle.ca [209.167.58.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 53DC243D4C for ; Tue, 6 Jul 2004 14:15:46 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from iaccounts@ibctech.ca) Received: (qmail 13749 invoked by uid 1002); 6 Jul 2004 14:15:56 -0000 Received: from iaccounts@ibctech.ca by pearl.ibctech.ca by uid 89 with qmail-scanner-1.22 (clamscan: 0.73. spamassassin: 2.63. Clear:RC:1(127.0.0.1):. Processed in 1.230116 secs); 06 Jul 2004 14:15:56 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO pearl.ibctech.ca) (127.0.0.1) by localhost.ibctech.ca with SMTP; 6 Jul 2004 14:15:54 -0000 Received: from 209.167.16.15 (SquirrelMail authenticated user steve@ibctech.ca); by pearl.ibctech.ca with HTTP; Tue, 6 Jul 2004 10:15:54 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <3703.209.167.16.15.1089123354.squirrel@209.167.16.15> Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 10:15:54 -0400 (EDT) From: "Steve Bertrand" To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.3a X-Mailer: SquirrelMail/1.4.3a MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Importance: Normal Subject: Removing thousands of files using rm X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 06 Jul 2004 14:15:48 -0000 I often have the need to remove hundreds or even thousands of files from a single directory (very often). Using rm, I usually get: pearl# rm -rvf * /bin/rm: Argument list too long. Is there any way to work around this instead of having to select a small bunch of files at a time to remove? The directory I am trying to remove the files from is always hot, so deleting the directory is unfortunately not an option. (I don't think). Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Tks all, Steve