CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashshellunix
PRK
PRK

Reputation: 431

How to remove files using find and rm command?

find -mmin -19 -exec rm '{}'\;

It will find the modified files 1st and then remove them. but it gives me error as below, find: missing argument to `-exec'

Also tried various combinations like,

find -mmin -19 -exec rm '{}';\
find -mmin -19 -exec rm '{}'/;

Upvotes: 13

Views: 33174

Answers (3)

Tom Inchesgrim
Tom Inchesgrim

Reputation: 1

Here is another option. Specify the date from which we want to delete the files:

find /SYSADMIT/* -type f -not -newermt "AAAA:MM:DD HH:MI:SS" -delete

Extracted from: https://www.sysadmit.com/2019/08/linux-borrar-ficheros-por-fecha.html

Upvotes: 0

falsetru
falsetru

Reputation: 368914

You need space between the command and \;

find -mmin -19 -exec rm {} \;

find already provide -delete option, so you don't need to use -exec rm ..:

find -mmin -19 -delete

-delete

Delete files; true if removal succeeded. If the removal failed, an error message is issued. If -delete fails, find's exit status will be nonzero (when it eventually exits). Use of -delete automatically turns on the -depth option.

Warnings: Don't forget that the find command line is evaluated as an expression, so putting -delete first will make find try to delete everything below the starting points you specified. When testing a find command line that you later intend to use with -delete, you should explicitly specify -depth in order to avoid later surprises. Because -delete implies -depth, you cannot usefully use -prune and -delete together.

Upvotes: 30

Jasen
Jasen

Reputation: 12402

You're missing an essential space to separate the braces from the semicolon.

find -mmin -19 -exec rm '{}' \;

but this does the same ting, is easier to type, and probably executes faster.

find -mmin -19 -delete

Upvotes: 5

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