Delete all but some directories

2013-08-16 1 min read Bash Fedora Linux

I think, like me, you would have faced a lot of situations, where you wanted to delete all the files or directories in a location, leaving only the required files/directories. So, I have a directory containing lots of files/directories and I want to delete most of them except some 5/10 of them, how to I do it.

I finally wrote a small script to do that. First save list of files that you do not want to delete in file called “listnames” and then execute the below script. This will give you the rm commands that you need to execute. If you want you can execute the rm command from the script, but to be able to review, I just have the commands echoed.

The power of find command in Linux – advanced.

2010-05-24 2 min read Linux

Generally whoever uses Linux, would know about the find command. Find the man page <a href="http://amit.themafia.info/phpMan.php?parameter=find&mode=man" target="_blank">here.

There are also lots of blogs, tutorials and other articles on find command on the web, so why write another one. Because it’s worth every word spent on it 🙂
find is a very powerful command, let’s see how (options for find command from man page and usage):

–depth — Process each directory’s contents before the directory itself.
–maxdepth — Descend at most levels (a non-negative integer) levels of directories below the command line arguments.
–xdev — Don’t descend directories on other filesystems.
–executable — Matches files which are executable and directories which are searchable (in a file name resolution sense).
This takes into account access control lists and other permissions artefacts which the -perm test ignores.
–iname — Like -name, but the match is case insensitive.
–nogroup — No group corresponds to file’s numeric group ID.
–nouser — No user corresponds to file’s numeric user ID.
–fls file — True; like -ls but write to file like -fprint.
–ok command — Like -exec but ask the user first (on the standard input);
–print0 — True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed by a null character
(instead of the newline character that -print uses).
–printf format — True; print format on the standard output, interpreting ’’ escapes and ’%’ directives.
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Linux find command – Find file and directories faster and easier

2010-03-16 1 min read Linux

This command is very powerfull when used with combination of filters and pipes and RE.

I will give some example:

find . -type f –» List all files
find . -type f -exec rm {} <a class=“zem_slink” title=“Path (computing)” href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_%28computing%29" rel=“wikipedia”>\; –» Delete all files
find . -type d -exec rm {} \; –» Will through some common errors 🙂
find . -name "name" –> find files containing name in the filename
find . -atime 12 –> Find files accessed 12 days ago
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