Ubuntu – how to remove files in a list of paths easily

removingrm

I have a list of lines like 

/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libavfilter.so
/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libavfilter.so.3
/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libavfilter.so.3.42.103
/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libavfilter.so
/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libavfilter.so.3
/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libavfilter.so.3.42.103
/usr/local/lib/libavfilter.so
/usr/local/lib/libavfilter.so.4
/usr/local/lib/libavfilter.so.4.4.100

How can I remove those files altogether instead of removing them one by one like

 rm        /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libavfilter.so
 rm        /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libavfilter.so.3
 rm        /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libavfilter.so.3.42.103
 rm        /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libavfilter.so
 rm        /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libavfilter.so.3
 rm        /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libavfilter.so.3.42.103
 rm        /usr/local/lib/libavfilter.so
 rm        /usr/local/lib/libavfilter.so.4
 rm        /usr/local/lib/libavfilter.so.4.4.100

?

WARNING!
Don't apply below commands without checking output at first

Best Answer

What's your input? A file? A command? Either way, xargs should be helpful:

cat file | xargs rm

... will delete every path for every line in the file. If it's just a command that's outputting a path on each line, pipe it through xargs and it should work well.

Alternatively, use xargs --arg-file="file.txt" rm. This saves on pipe and unnecessary cat.

If you're looking to do more with each line, you could use a traditional bash while loop:

# uses echo for testing
# remove # before rm for actual deletion
while read -r path; do
    echo "deleting $path"
    # rm "$path"
done < file

If your list is the output of find, you have another couple of options, including a -delete option or using -exec rm {} \+. There are almost certainly a few dozen other viable routes to success. If you're doing automated deletion with find, just check the output before you delete. It won't forgive you your mistakes.

Spaces can be a problem with piping things into xargs. This might not be an issue for you and your locate but both locate and xargs have a way of getting around that. They can both choose to use the \0 null character as a delimiter instead of return lines. Yay. In short, your command becomes:

locate -0b libavfilter.so | xargs -0 rm
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