Ubuntu – Find not removing files in folders through bash script

14.04bashfindscripts

I'm very new in bash scripting and I'm really stuck on the find method from Ubuntu.
I want to search in the folder /opt/ for all folders to see if they are older than a specific date. If they are older the files in this folder should be removed (and the folder itself too actually). If the date is still too new the files should not be touched.

What I have in code:

find $BACKUP_DIR -maxdepth 1 -mtime +$DAYS_TO_KEEP -name "*$mystring" -exec rm -rf '{}' ';'

The variables contain these values:

BACKUP_DIR=/opt/
TESTDIR=2014-11-25-daily_testmachine
mystring=-daily_testmachine

If the variable $DAYS_TO_KEEP is 2, the date is 2014-11-25 and the folder name is 2014-11-20-daily_testmachine the folder and its contents should be dropped.

What am I doing wrong that find is not removing/finding these files and folders to remove? I can't seem to find the error.

Note: if I execute the command with the exact string name of the folder in it the folder will be deleted. So I have something wrong in my format or naming.

find $BACKUP_DIR -maxdepth 1 -name "2014-11-20-daily_testmachine" -exec rm -rf '{}' ';'

To make things more clear I've made a screenshot to show the setup:

Best Answer

My error was a logic error with -mtime. I thought my script was checking the names but -mtime checks for the date when the file was created. So my final code:

DAYS_TO_KEEP=2
find $BACKUP_DIR -maxdepth 1 -mtime +"$DAYS_TO_KEEP" -exec rm -rf {} \;

I just had to do a sudo touch -d "3 days ago" /filepath/folderToRemove to make -mname find the folder and make sure the file was old enough to be removed. So this final code removes all folders that are older than my variable $DAYS_TO_KEEP

WARNING:

Using eval like that is not safe and can result in executing arbitrary and possibly harmful code if your file names can contain certain characters. See bash FAQ 48 for details.

It's better to pass the path as an argument:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
find "$@" -name "file*"

Another approach is to avoid find altogether and use bash's extended globbing features and globs:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
shopt -s globstar
for file in te*/my\ files/**; do echo "$file"; done

The globstar bash option lets you use ** to match recursively:

globstar
      If set, the pattern ** used in a pathname expansion con‐
      text will match all files and zero or  more  directories
      and  subdirectories.  If the pattern is followed by a /,
      only directories and subdirectories match.

To make it act 100% like find and include dotfiles (hidden files), use

#!/usr/bin/env bash
shopt -s globstar
shopt -s dotglob
for file in te*/my\ files/**; do echo "$file"; done

You can even echo them directly without the loop:

echo te*/my\ files/**

Ubuntu – How to find all empty files and folders in a specific directory including files which just look empty but are not

From man find

    -empty File is empty and is either a regular file or a directory.

So to find both empty files and directories it is sufficient to do

find ~/lists -empty

To indicate the type, you could use the %y output format specifier

          %y     File's type (like in ls -l), U=unknown type (shouldn't happen)

e.g.

find ~/lists -empty -printf '%y %p\n'

or make use of an external program like ls, which includes a --classify option

    -F, --classify
          append indicator (one of */=>@|) to entries

i.e.

find ~/lists -empty -exec ls -Fd {} \;

If your definition of 'empty' is expanded to include files containing only whitespace characters, then it becomes more complicated - and more computationally intensive, since now you need to actually open at least any non-empty files and examine their contents. The most efficient way I can think of off the top of my head would be something like

find ~/list \( -empty -o \( -type f -a ! -exec grep -qm1 '[^[:blank:]]' {} \; \) \) -exec ls -Fd {} \;

(either empty, OR a file AND grep does not detect at least one non-blank character). Likely there is a better way though.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to pass ‘*’ wildcard to path parameter of find command via a variable in script

WARNING:

Ubuntu – How to find all empty files and folders in a specific directory including files which just look empty but are not

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