CODEWITHSUNDEEP
emacselisp
user568866
user568866

Reputation:

How to recursively remove emacs backup files?

In emacs, while in Dired mode, I can use the ~ command to mark all my emacs backups for deletion. Is there a way to mark them all recursively so I can delete all my backups in the current directory and all subdirectories?

Upvotes: 6

Views: 883

Answers (3)

Inaimathi
Inaimathi

Reputation: 14065

If you're on a *nix or cygwin, you should be able to do

find -name '*~' -exec rm {} \;

Upvotes: 3

phils
phils

Reputation: 73274

You could also use M-x find-name-dired with file pattern *~ to list only the backup files in a dired buffer.

Upvotes: 1

Oleg Pavliv
Oleg Pavliv

Reputation: 21172

You can define two kinds of dired: flat and recursive. For example:

(defun op-i:dired (rec)
  "customized dired: will display directory recursively when called with an argument"
  (interactive "P")
  (let ((dir (car (find-file-read-args "Dired: " nil))) 
        (opts (if rec (read-string "options: " "-lhAR") "-lhA")))
    (if (file-directory-p dir) (dired dir opts))))

(define-key (current-global-map) (kbd "C-x C-d") 'op-i:dired)

Then calling this function with C-u C-x C-d will display dired recursively and with C-x C-d will do it as usual.

After displaying dired recursively you can delete backups or do other stuff recursively too.

Upvotes: 2

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