Alternative options to rm -f

command linerm

I'd like to run a command line:

cd ~/www/tmp/; rm -P 2*

But I get an error if there are no files starting with 2.

You would think I would want to use -f, however:

-f      Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation, regardless of the file's permissions.  If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify the exit status to reflect an error.

And I do care about file permissions- if there's something weird going on, I'd prefer the command abort. I only want to suppress 'do not exist' errors.

I've looked at some other questions with 'rm errors', and found these two which seem (kinda) relevant:

Delete files and directories by their names. No such file or directory

But, I don't understand everything going on in the answers to this question, and don't know that I need it?

The touch hack suggested in this question:

Have rm not report when a file is missing?

Seems workable, as I don't think I mind the performance hit (but what type of performance hit would you take? – ie: is this a reasonably scalable technique, or am I just learning very bad habits?)

I'm not sure how I'd do an if-then within the command line.

Are there any other options for a simple command line cut-n-paste cleanup?

Would find -delete work better for my case? If so, why?

error in question:

rm: 2*: No such file or directory

Best Answer

To only call rm -P for existing regular files whose names match a pattern in a directory (but not below):

find directory -maxdepth 1 -type f -name 'pattern' -exec rm -P {} +

E.g.,

find ~/www/tmp/ -maxdepth 1 -type f -name '2*' -exec rm -P {} +

To match only non-directories, use ! -type d in place of -type f. The difference is that ! -type d would be true for a wider range of file types (symbolic links, named pipes, sockets, etc.)

Since you want to be prompted for some conditions on the files found, you should not use -delete instead of -exec rm since that works as rm -f.

Remove -maxdepth 1 to let find look in subdirectories recursively.

Related Solutions

Shell – How to Remove All Sub-Directories from a Directory

In BASH you can use the trailing slash (I think it should work in any POSIX shell):

rm -R -- */

Note the -- which separates options from arguments and allows one to remove entries starting with a hyphen - otherwise after expansion by the shell the entry name would be interpreted as an option by rm (the same holds for many other command line utilities).

Add the -f option if you don't want to be prompted for confirmation when deleting non-writeable files.

Note that by default, hidden directories (those whose name starts with .) will be left alone.

An important caveat: the expansion of */ will also include symlinks that eventually resolve to files of type directory. And depending on the rm implementation, rm -R -- thelink/ will either just delete the symlink, or (in most of them) delete the content of the linked directory recursively but not that directory itself nor the symlink.

If using zsh, a better approach would be to use a glob qualifier to select files of type directory only:

rm -R -- *(/) # or *(D/) to include hidden ones

or:

rm -R -- *(-/)

to include symlinks to directories (but because, this time, the expansion doesn't have trailing /s, it's the symlink only that is removed with all rm implementations).

With bash, AT&T ksh, yash or zsh you can do:

set -- */
rm -R -- "${@%/}"

to strip the trailing /.

SQLite3 command line: how do you cancel a command

The sqlite3 interface uses the ReadLine library for command line editing. You can erase a full line with Ctrl+U but once you have pressed Enter, the line has been accepted and is no longer editable.

As you've noticed, sending Ctrl+D will prompt the client to exit, which is not what you want.

Your best bet is to

close any string, and then,
before issuing a final ;, generate a deliberate syntax error.

In your example:

sqlite> select * from todos'
   ...> '
   ...> *** I made a mistake
   ...> ;
Error: near "*": syntax error
sqlite>

This will ensure that nothing gets executed, and it will leave you in the SQLite session with any temporary tables intact.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Shell – How to Remove All Sub-Directories from a Directory

SQLite3 command line: how do you cancel a command

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