Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 10:39:52 -0400 (EDT) From: "Steve Bertrand" <iaccounts@ibctech.ca> To: "Lowell Gilbert" <freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Removing thousands of files using rm Message-ID: <3849.209.167.16.15.1089124792.squirrel@209.167.16.15> In-Reply-To: <44pt79mcu9.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> References: <3703.209.167.16.15.1089123354.squirrel@209.167.16.15> <44pt79mcu9.fsf@be-well.ilk.org>
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>> 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? > > Not exactly, but find(1) will do the job for you. > Typically you would use it with xargs(1). Thanks to all who replied. This following suggestion worked very, very well, and extremely quickly: > find /path-to-directory -type f -print | xargs rm I'll read up on find and xargs as this approach appears to be easily scripted and cronned. Tks again! STeve > > You may need to add some options to those commands depending on your > situation. For example, if you have embedded whitespace characters in > the file names or if you don't want to descend into subdirectories. >
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