Unix Tip: SPECIFIC REMOVALS

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UNIX HOT TIP

Unix Tip 2443 - September 9, 2005

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SPECIFIC REMOVALS

To remove every file in the folder that is not dated March:

rm ` ls -al | grep -v "Mar" | awk '{print $9}'`

Or a specific date in March:

rm ` ls -al | grep -v "Mar 28" | awk '{print $9}'`

Note: that this is a dangerous command to issue since it assumes that you are consciously using it on a directory which is full of files that are out of date or not belonging to March or whatever.

(If this is not the case you might get some undesirable results.)

The other thing is that you might want to keep more than one month's worth of files. You would then need to move the files from the other month out into a temporary subfolder while you "clean" the top folder. Then move them back in. Also, note that you have two types of single quote, the first and last are from the key under the escape key and the one that is used to delimit the awk print statement is the one next to the hash key. I have used this command myself regularly with a few extra pipes (to do certain specific things which are irrelevant here) in order to clean out subdirectories where the df is running at 100%! This has been a time-saver when I have had to log on to different servers around the world and do a regular purge.

THIS TIP IS NOT SUPPORT, UGU ADVICES TESTING BE FOR USING.

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