Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
On Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:34:20 -0500, Henry Olyer henry.ol...@gmail.com said: H I never learned a shell language. I suppose no one is as dumb as H someone who choose's not to learn, so, what's the right one. csh? Not for scripting: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/shell/csh-whynot/ I work in an environment containing FreeBSD, Solaris, and Linux boxes. Using a subset of BASH that also runs under the Korn Shell helps avoid portability surprises if I want to get something running on a different box, or if I post a script to a mailing list. If you're already in the habit of writing BASH and you have /bin/ksh installed, running ksh -n will syntax-check your script without executing it. I *think* pdksh does the same thing. -- Karl Vogel I don't speak for the USAF or my company My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore-house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference. --Harry Truman ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
Jerry McAllister jerr...@msu.edu wrote: On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 10:34:20AM -0500, Henry Olyer wrote: I use bash 4. OK. So?? If you had read the thread before posting, you would have known that someone asked which shell Henry was using (and he answered). ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
Matthew Seaman freebsd-questi...@infracaninophile.co.uk wrote: ls -1 | xargs rm but be aware that that wont work for filenames with spaces. True. Can't do that using ls to generate the list of filenames as there is no option to generate a null-separated list amongst ls's multitudinous collection. It can, however, be done indirectly :) $ ls -1 | tr '\012' '\000' | xargs -0 rm ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
On 11/02/2012 15:33, per...@pluto.rain.com wrote: Matthew Seaman freebsd-questi...@infracaninophile.co.uk wrote: ls -1 | xargs rm but be aware that that wont work for filenames with spaces. True. Can't do that using ls to generate the list of filenames as there is no option to generate a null-separated list amongst ls's multitudinous collection. It can, however, be done indirectly :) $ ls -1 | tr '\012' '\000' | xargs -0 rm Until you run into someone who creates filenames with newlines in them... Well, actually in that case, ls(1) would usually mangle the name: $ touch 'a file name with new lines in it' $ ls a* a?file name with?new lines in it Since it uses '?' to replace any unprintable character, that's not bullet proof either. Of course, ls(1) has an option for that: $ ls -B a* a\012file name with\012new lines in it Actually, it has two options for that: $ ls -b a* a\nfile name with\nnew lines in it and before Randal picks me up again on the differences between ls(1) outputting to the terminal rather than into anything else... $ ls a* ls.out $ hd ls.out 61 0a 66 69 6c 65 20 6e 61 6d 65 20 77 69 74 68 |a.file name with| 0010 0a 6e 65 77 20 6c 69 6e 65 73 20 69 6e 20 69 74 |.new lines in it| * 0020 No mangling occurs if you pipe the output into another process. Even so, the conclusion must be that ls(1) is not the best choice for generating a list of file names *for programmatic input* if you have to deal with the full gamut of possible names. find(1) is much better in that case. ls(1) is great for displaying to people in pretty much all circumstances, and it should only be used programmatically if you can /guarantee/ you aren't going run into any of the tricky cases. Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
On Sat, 11 Feb 2012 12:05:14 +1100 andrew clarke wrote: On Fri 2012-02-10 16:12:06 UTC+, Matthew Seaman (m.sea...@infracaninophile.co.uk) wrote: In addition, I don't believe it solves the OP's initial problem of the argument list being too long! You'd probably need to use the xargs -n switch here. Go and read the xargs(1) man page carefully. xargs is specifically designed to avoid arglist overflows. Ah, I grepped for 'limit' and 'overflow', didn't see anything applicable, and didn't notice the -s switch. That it avoids arglist overflows should perhaps be written more obviously in the man page (though I'm not sure how...) The important passage is the description of what xargs does: Any arguments specified on the command line are given to utility upon each invocation, followed by some number of the arguments read from the standard input of xargs. This is repeated until standard input is exhausted. It would be extremely perverse to go to the trouble of breaking-up stdin into chunks, but to choose a size that's too big to pass to the utility. You expect a man page to document perversity, but not to document all the perverse thing that aren't done. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
--As of February 10, 2012 4:24:58 PM +, Matthew Seaman is alleged to have said: On 10/02/2012 16:04, Matthew Story wrote: find . -type f -depth 1 -print0 | xargs -n99 -0 -s8192 -c5 rm -- or some such, depending on your needs, I believe in most situations this particular invocation will also out-perform find ... -delete. Why would you believe that? find ... -delete calls unlink(2) directly on each file it finds as it searches the directory tree given that it matches the other find predicates. Whereas find ... -print0 | xargs ... rm ... involves a whole complicated sequence of find doing the same searching and matching job, then marshalling lists of filenames, piping them between processes, then xargs exec(2)ing rm with chunks of that arglist; each rm invocation then finally ... calling unlink(2) on each of the named files. On the other hand, passing it through xargs makes the deletion multi-threaded (well, multi-process), while using -delete keeps it all in one process. Depending on your execution environment, that may be a win. Actually, I doubt you'ld see much difference above the noise in the speed of either of those two commands: they're both going to spend the vast majority of the time waiting for disk IO, and that's common to any way of doing this job. This is likely the root of the issue however. ;) (There are probably some pathological cases of multi-processor, multi-controller, multi-disk systems where having multiple IO streams would make a difference, but they are likely to be few for something like this.) Daniel T. Staal --- This email copyright the author. Unless otherwise noted, you are expressly allowed to retransmit, quote, or otherwise use the contents for non-commercial purposes. This copyright will expire 5 years after the author's death, or in 30 years, whichever is longer, unless such a period is in excess of local copyright law. --- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
So what do I change if I want to increase the shell's file limit? I use bash 4. And by the way, for me, part of the normal installation of a new FBSD box is to make certain changes. For example, for uniq -c I use %06 instead of %d because this way I can sort the output. Things like that. I never learned a shell language. I suppose no one is as dumb as someone who choose's not to learn, so, what's the right one. csh?, because I do a lot of scientific work?, or should I be looking at another? On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 10:25 PM, andrew clarke m...@ozzmosis.com wrote: On Tue 2012-02-07 23:17:16 UTC+, RW (rwmailli...@googlemail.com) wrote: On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:14:56 + Matthew Seaman wrote: ls -1 | xargs rm but be aware that that wont work for filenames with spaces. In addition, I don't believe it solves the OP's initial problem of the argument list being too long! You'd probably need to use the xargs -n switch here. The above will also try to 'rm' directories, which won't work. Instead I would use 'find': find . -type f -depth 1 -delete This will also work with filenames with spaces. Or the scenic route, using xargs, with one rm per file (slower): find . -type f -depth 1 -print0 | xargs -n1 -0 rm -f (The scenic route is useful if you want to do something else with the files instead of deleting them with rm.) Regards Andrew ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
On 02/11/12 01:34, Henry Olyer wrote: So what do I change if I want to increase the shell's file limit? I don't think you can. It's not a shell limit. It's a limit to the number of arguments the command itself will take. As said, the shell expands '*' to a list of files as the argument, and rm is limited to the number of arguments it will parse. I use bash 4. And by the way, for me, part of the normal installation of a new FBSD box is to make certain changes. For example, for uniq -c I use %06 instead of %d because this way I can sort the output. Things like that. I never learned a shell language. I suppose no one is as dumb as someone who choose's not to learn, so, what's the right one. csh?, because I do a lot of scientific work?, or should I be looking at another? There's not really much difference in this factor for shell types; as for changes you'd have to hack the command's (say rm) code. As mentioned, I'd use the find -delete combination. On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 10:25 PM, andrew clarkem...@ozzmosis.com wrote: On Tue 2012-02-07 23:17:16 UTC+, RW (rwmailli...@googlemail.com) wrote: On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:14:56 + Matthew Seaman wrote: ls -1 | xargs rm but be aware that that wont work for filenames with spaces. In addition, I don't believe it solves the OP's initial problem of the argument list being too long! You'd probably need to use the xargs -n switch here. The above will also try to 'rm' directories, which won't work. Instead I would use 'find': find . -type f -depth 1 -delete This will also work with filenames with spaces. Or the scenic route, using xargs, with one rm per file (slower): find . -type f -depth 1 -print0 | xargs -n1 -0 rm -f (The scenic route is useful if you want to do something else with the files instead of deleting them with rm.) Regards Andrew ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Da Rock freebsd-questi...@herveybayaustralia.com.au wrote: On 02/11/12 01:34, Henry Olyer wrote: So what do I change if I want to increase the shell's file limit? I don't think you can. It's not a shell limit. It's a limit to the number of arguments the command itself will take. As said, the shell expands '*' to a list of files as the argument, and rm is limited to the number of arguments it will parse. I use bash 4. And by the way, for me, part of the normal installation of a new FBSD box is to make certain changes. For example, for uniq -c I use %06 instead of %d because this way I can sort the output. Things like that. I never learned a shell language. I suppose no one is as dumb as someone who choose's not to learn, so, what's the right one. csh?, because I do a lot of scientific work?, or should I be looking at another? There's not really much difference in this factor for shell types; as for changes you'd have to hack the command's (say rm) code. As mentioned, I'd use the find -delete combination. I think the only thing that would give you this sort of pseudo-granularity of MAX_ARGS (and ARG_MAX) control at run-time is xargs with the -s and -n options ... a play on andrew's earlier example: find . -type f -depth 1 -print0 | xargs -n99 -0 -s8192 -c5 rm -- or some such, depending on your needs, I believe in most situations this particular invocation will also out-perform find ... -delete. On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 10:25 PM, andrew clarkem...@ozzmosis.com wrote: On Tue 2012-02-07 23:17:16 UTC+, RW (rwmailli...@googlemail.com) wrote: On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:14:56 + Matthew Seaman wrote: ls -1 | xargs rm but be aware that that wont work for filenames with spaces. In addition, I don't believe it solves the OP's initial problem of the argument list being too long! You'd probably need to use the xargs -n switch here. The above will also try to 'rm' directories, which won't work. Instead I would use 'find': find . -type f -depth 1 -delete This will also work with filenames with spaces. Or the scenic route, using xargs, with one rm per file (slower): find . -type f -depth 1 -print0 | xargs -n1 -0 rm -f (The scenic route is useful if you want to do something else with the files instead of deleting them with rm.) Regards Andrew __**_ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/**mailman/listinfo/freebsd-**questionshttp://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@**freebsd.orgfreebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org __**_ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/**mailman/listinfo/freebsd-**questionshttp://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-** unsubscr...@freebsd.org freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org __**_ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/**mailman/listinfo/freebsd-**questionshttp://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-** unsubscr...@freebsd.org freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org -- regards, matt ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 11:04 AM, Matthew Story matthewst...@gmail.comwrote: On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Da Rock freebsd-questi...@herveybayaustralia.com.au wrote: On 02/11/12 01:34, Henry Olyer wrote: So what do I change if I want to increase the shell's file limit? I don't think you can. It's not a shell limit. It's a limit to the number of arguments the command itself will take. As said, the shell expands '*' to a list of files as the argument, and rm is limited to the number of arguments it will parse. I use bash 4. And by the way, for me, part of the normal installation of a new FBSD box is to make certain changes. For example, for uniq -c I use %06 instead of %d because this way I can sort the output. Things like that. I never learned a shell language. I suppose no one is as dumb as someone who choose's not to learn, so, what's the right one. csh?, because I do a lot of scientific work?, or should I be looking at another? There's not really much difference in this factor for shell types; as for changes you'd have to hack the command's (say rm) code. As mentioned, I'd use the find -delete combination. I think the only thing that would give you this sort of pseudo-granularity of MAX_ARGS (and ARG_MAX) control at run-time is xargs with the -s and -n options ... a play on andrew's earlier example: find . -type f -depth 1 -print0 | xargs -n99 -0 -s8192 -c5 rm -- the -c5 here should read -P5 ... apologies. or some such, depending on your needs, I believe in most situations this particular invocation will also out-perform find ... -delete. On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 10:25 PM, andrew clarkem...@ozzmosis.com wrote: On Tue 2012-02-07 23:17:16 UTC+, RW (rwmailli...@googlemail.com) wrote: On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:14:56 + Matthew Seaman wrote: ls -1 | xargs rm but be aware that that wont work for filenames with spaces. In addition, I don't believe it solves the OP's initial problem of the argument list being too long! You'd probably need to use the xargs -n switch here. The above will also try to 'rm' directories, which won't work. Instead I would use 'find': find . -type f -depth 1 -delete This will also work with filenames with spaces. Or the scenic route, using xargs, with one rm per file (slower): find . -type f -depth 1 -print0 | xargs -n1 -0 rm -f (The scenic route is useful if you want to do something else with the files instead of deleting them with rm.) Regards Andrew __**_ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/**mailman/listinfo/freebsd-**questionshttp://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@**freebsd.orgfreebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org __**_ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/**mailman/listinfo/freebsd-**questionshttp://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-** unsubscr...@freebsd.org freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org __**_ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/**mailman/listinfo/freebsd-**questionshttp://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-** unsubscr...@freebsd.org freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org -- regards, matt -- regards, matt ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
ls -1 | xargs rm
but be aware that that wont work for filenames with spaces.
True. Can't do that using ls to generate the list of filenames as there
is no option to generate a null-separated list amongst ls's
multitudinous collection.
In addition, I don't believe it solves the OP's initial problem of the
argument list being too long! You'd probably need to use the xargs -n
switch here.
Go and read the xargs(1) man page carefully. xargs is specifically
designed to avoid arglist overflows.
Or the scenic route, using xargs, with one rm per file (slower):
find . -type f -depth 1 -print0 | xargs -n1 -0 rm -f
(The scenic route is useful if you want to do something else with
the files instead of deleting them with rm.)
In this case, if you're going to call rm repeatedly with only one arg,
then xargs is pretty pointless. You might as well do:
find . -type f -depth 1 -exec rm -f '{}' ';'
but let's not leave people in any doubt that this is not the best option.
Cheers,
Matthew
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Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 10:34:20AM -0500, Henry Olyer wrote: So what do I change if I want to increase the shell's file limit? You don't want to diddle the shell. Use the correct UNIX utilities such as - for, xargs or find - in this case as have been suggested by other responders. That is the way it is done (and done better) in UNIX. I use bash 4. OK. So?? I never learned a shell language. I suppose no one is as dumb as someone who choose's not to learn, so, what's the right one. csh?, because I do a lot of scientific work?, or should I be looking at another? Probably doesn't matter that much what type of work you are doing. It matters more what the users of a system tend to use. In FreeBSD it is tcsh which is basically an extension of csh. Actually, nowdays on FreeBSD, csh is just a link to tcsh anyway. On Lunix, I think most people use bash, so if you are there, do that. There are some small differences that are meaningful depending on what kind of scripting you are doing. But, mostly it doesn't matter a lot. jerry On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 10:25 PM, andrew clarke m...@ozzmosis.com wrote: On Tue 2012-02-07 23:17:16 UTC+, RW (rwmailli...@googlemail.com) wrote: On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:14:56 + Matthew Seaman wrote: ls -1 | xargs rm but be aware that that wont work for filenames with spaces. In addition, I don't believe it solves the OP's initial problem of the argument list being too long! You'd probably need to use the xargs -n switch here. The above will also try to 'rm' directories, which won't work. Instead I would use 'find': find . -type f -depth 1 -delete This will also work with filenames with spaces. Or the scenic route, using xargs, with one rm per file (slower): find . -type f -depth 1 -print0 | xargs -n1 -0 rm -f (The scenic route is useful if you want to do something else with the files instead of deleting them with rm.) Regards Andrew ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
On 10/02/2012 16:04, Matthew Story wrote: find . -type f -depth 1 -print0 | xargs -n99 -0 -s8192 -c5 rm -- or some such, depending on your needs, I believe in most situations this particular invocation will also out-perform find ... -delete. Why would you believe that? find ... -delete calls unlink(2) directly on each file it finds as it searches the directory tree given that it matches the other find predicates. Whereas find ... -print0 | xargs ... rm ... involves a whole complicated sequence of find doing the same searching and matching job, then marshalling lists of filenames, piping them between processes, then xargs exec(2)ing rm with chunks of that arglist; each rm invocation then finally ... calling unlink(2) on each of the named files. Actually, I doubt you'ld see much difference above the noise in the speed of either of those two commands: they're both going to spend the vast majority of the time waiting for disk IO, and that's common to any way of doing this job. Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 7 Priory Courtyard Flat 3 PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Ramsgate JID: matt...@infracaninophile.co.uk Kent, CT11 9PW signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re[2]: 'rm' Can not delete files
Здравствуйте, Da. Вы писали 10 февраля 2012 г., 17:51:59: DR On 02/11/12 01:34, Henry Olyer wrote: So what do I change if I want to increase the shell's file limit? DR I don't think you can. It's not a shell limit. It's a limit to the DR number of arguments the command itself will take. As said, the shell DR expands '*' to a list of files as the argument, and rm is limited to the DR number of arguments it will parse. Mya be it would be better in program do not process options 'all at once'. but instead process them one by one: get next option, remove file, get next option, remove file for $i in (@options) do delete_file( $i ) I use bash 4. And by the way, for me, part of the normal installation of a new FBSD box is to make certain changes. For example, for uniq -c I use %06 instead of %d because this way I can sort the output. Things like that. I never learned a shell language. I suppose no one is as dumb as someone who choose's not to learn, so, what's the right one. csh?, because I do a lot of scientific work?, or should I be looking at another? DR There's not really much difference in this factor for shell types; as DR for changes you'd have to hack the command's (say rm) code. DR As mentioned, I'd use the find -delete combination. On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 10:25 PM, andrew clarkem...@ozzmosis.com wrote: On Tue 2012-02-07 23:17:16 UTC+, RW (rwmailli...@googlemail.com) wrote: On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:14:56 + Matthew Seaman wrote: ls -1 | xargs rm but be aware that that wont work for filenames with spaces. In addition, I don't believe it solves the OP's initial problem of the argument list being too long! You'd probably need to use the xargs -n switch here. The above will also try to 'rm' directories, which won't work. Instead I would use 'find': find . -type f -depth 1 -delete This will also work with filenames with spaces. Or the scenic route, using xargs, with one rm per file (slower): find . -type f -depth 1 -print0 | xargs -n1 -0 rm -f (The scenic route is useful if you want to do something else with the files instead of deleting them with rm.) Regards Andrew -- С уважением, Коньков mailto:kes-...@yandex.ru ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
Matthew == Matthew Seaman m.sea...@infracaninophile.co.uk writes:
Matthewfind . -type f -depth 1 -exec rm -f '{}' ';'
Matthew but let's not leave people in any doubt that this is not the
Matthew best option.
However...
find . -type f -depth 1 -exec rm -f {} +
Might very well be a great option. Well, not for something that is also
like -delete, but for other things that would have formerly required
-print0 | xargs -0... this is apparently a fairly recent (and
welcome!) modification to find.
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Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
On Fri 2012-02-10 16:12:06 UTC+, Matthew Seaman
(m.sea...@infracaninophile.co.uk) wrote:
In addition, I don't believe it solves the OP's initial problem of the
argument list being too long! You'd probably need to use the xargs -n
switch here.
Go and read the xargs(1) man page carefully. xargs is specifically
designed to avoid arglist overflows.
Ah, I grepped for 'limit' and 'overflow', didn't see anything
applicable, and didn't notice the -s switch. That it avoids arglist
overflows should perhaps be written more obviously in the man page
(though I'm not sure how...)
Or the scenic route, using xargs, with one rm per file (slower):
find . -type f -depth 1 -print0 | xargs -n1 -0 rm -f
(The scenic route is useful if you want to do something else with
the files instead of deleting them with rm.)
In this case, if you're going to call rm repeatedly with only one arg,
then xargs is pretty pointless. You might as well do:
find . -type f -depth 1 -exec rm -f '{}' ';'
but let's not leave people in any doubt that this is not the best option.
True, but I can never remember the syntax for -exec. :-)
Regards
Andrew
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Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
2012/2/7 Ingo Hofmann ingo.hofm...@dont-panic.org: What helps me sometimes is wrapping it up: for i in *; do rm $i; done Won't that just expand the * and result in the same problem? It seems like you've just moved the problem from the rm statement to the for statement. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
On 02/08/2012 12:02 PM, David Brodbeck wrote: 2012/2/7 Ingo Hofmann ingo.hofm...@dont-panic.org: What helps me sometimes is wrapping it up: for i in *; do rm $i; done Won't that just expand the * and result in the same problem? It seems like you've just moved the problem from the rm statement to the for statement. This error arises during exec(3) when the length of the program arguments exceeds a certain size. Since 'for' is a shell builtin, there is no such practical limitation thereupon. See the ERRORS section in execve(2), specifically [E2BIG], for more details. -- Fuzzy love, -CyberLeo Technical Administrator CyberLeo.Net Webhosting http://www.CyberLeo.Net cyber...@cyberleo.net Furry Peace! - http://.fur.com/peace/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
David Brodbeck writes: What helps me sometimes is wrapping it up: for i in *; do rm $i; done Won't that just expand the * and result in the same problem? It seems like you've just moved the problem from the rm statement to the for statement. If the problem is the command line to rm being too long, this will work. Yes, the '* will get expanded to the list of files ... but that will happen _within_ the running shell. (Using the services of glob(3) or something similar.) The command line to rm will have a single file-name, and should not be a problem. Robert Huff ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
On Tue 2012-02-07 23:17:16 UTC+, RW (rwmailli...@googlemail.com) wrote: On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:14:56 + Matthew Seaman wrote: ls -1 | xargs rm but be aware that that wont work for filenames with spaces. In addition, I don't believe it solves the OP's initial problem of the argument list being too long! You'd probably need to use the xargs -n switch here. The above will also try to 'rm' directories, which won't work. Instead I would use 'find': find . -type f -depth 1 -delete This will also work with filenames with spaces. Or the scenic route, using xargs, with one rm per file (slower): find . -type f -depth 1 -print0 | xargs -n1 -0 rm -f (The scenic route is useful if you want to do something else with the files instead of deleting them with rm.) Regards Andrew ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
'rm' Can not delete files
# rm * /bin/rm: Argument list too long. in this directory about 25000 files, but actually there is only one argument to rm it is '*' sign. Why rm get list of all files in directore instead of deleting one by one? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
Коньков == Коньков Евгений kes-...@yandex.ru writes: Коньков # rm * Коньков /bin/rm: Argument list too long. Коньков in this directory about 25000 files, Коньков but actually there is only one argument to rm it is '*' sign. Коньков Why rm get list of all files in directore instead of deleting Коньков one by one? It's the way Unix works. Individual commands typically know nothing of '*' or '[abc]'. The shell globs the command, expanding it to all the matching files, and then hands that list to the command as individual arguments. However, sometimes that expansion exceeds the maximum argument size, as you discovered. If you have perl, try this: perl -e 'unlink glob(*)' It uses Perl's internal glob() function, which can handle an unlimited number of files. -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 mer...@stonehenge.com URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/ Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See http://methodsandmessages.posterous.com/ for Smalltalk discussion ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
On 02/07/2012 11:59 PM, Коньков Евгений wrote: # rm * /bin/rm: Argument list too long. in this directory about 25000 files, but actually there is only one argument to rm it is '*' sign. Why rm get list of all files in directore instead of deleting one by one? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org AFAIR, the shell expands * to every match , so from this point of view it is equivalent to the 25000 files. Try 'rm -f [a-d]*' , then [e-h]* or similar until you get them all. Best, -- Rares Aioanei ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
On 07/02/2012 21:59, Коньков Евгений wrote: # rm * /bin/rm: Argument list too long. in this directory about 25000 files, but actually there is only one argument to rm it is '*' sign. Why rm get list of all files in directore instead of deleting one by one? It's the shell that expands wild cards, and it will attempt to fork and exec rm(1) with an arg list of all matching files. rm(1) itself has no concept of wildcards -- it expects a list of filenames. As you have discovered, it is very easy to overload the argument list. There are many ways around this, but one of the best ones is to use xargs(1). eg: % ls -1 | xargs rm Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 7 Priory Courtyard Flat 3 PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Ramsgate JID: matt...@infracaninophile.co.uk Kent, CT11 9PW signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re[2]: 'rm' Can not delete files
Thank you all for answers =) -- С уважением, Коньков mailto:kes-...@yandex.ru ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
2012/2/7 Коньков Евгений kes-...@yandex.ru # rm * /bin/rm: Argument list too long. in this directory about 25000 files, but actually there is only one argument to rm it is '*' sign. Why rm get list of all files in directore instead of deleting one by one? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org The 'rm' command lists each file in the directory prior to removing it. For very large directories, the proper (and faster in other cases) way is to user 'find', such as below: # find . -delete or, if you only want to delete files (leaving the directories): # find . -type f -delete ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
What helps me sometimes is wrapping it up: for i in *; do rm $i; done Best, Ingo P.S.: Helps also with whitespaces in the filename where 'rm *' fails too. On 07.02.2012, at 14:10 , Rares Aioanei wrote: On 02/07/2012 11:59 PM, Коньков Евгений wrote: # rm * /bin/rm: Argument list too long. in this directory about 25000 files, but actually there is only one argument to rm it is '*' sign. Why rm get list of all files in directore instead of deleting one by one? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org AFAIR, the shell expands * to every match , so from this point of view it is equivalent to the 25000 files. Try 'rm -f [a-d]*' , then [e-h]* or similar until you get them all. Best, -- Rares Aioanei ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
Êîíüêîâ Åâãåíèé wrote: # rm * /bin/rm: Argument list too long. in this directory about 25000 files, but actually there is only one argument to rm it is '*' sign. Why rm get list of all files in directore instead of deleting one by one? Short answer: this is not Windows. Long answer: shell does wildcard expands, therefore rm gets about 25000 arguments of expanded '*'. Try find ./ -type f -delete Thanks, CK ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
Matthew == Matthew Seaman m.sea...@infracaninophile.co.uk writes: Matthew As you have discovered, it is very easy to overload the argument list. Matthew There are many ways around this, but one of the best ones is to use Matthew xargs(1). eg: Matthew% ls -1 | xargs rm No need for the -1 there. Whenever ls is not going to the terminal, it defaults to classic -1 behavior. Compare: % ls with % ls | cat -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 mer...@stonehenge.com URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/ Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See http://methodsandmessages.posterous.com/ for Smalltalk discussion ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:14:56 + Matthew Seaman wrote: ls -1 | xargs rm but be aware that that wont work for filenames with spaces. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 'rm' Can not delete files
On 2/7/12, Коньков Евгений kes-...@yandex.ru wrote: # rm * /bin/rm: Argument list too long. in this directory about 25000 files, but actually there is only one argument to rm it is '*' sign. Why rm get list of all files in directore instead of deleting one by one? If you're removing everything, can you just remove the directory and re-create it? e.g: cd .. rm -rf foo mkdir foo -Modulok- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
