Deleting a directory starting with a specific string in shell script

Question

When I'm trying to delete all directories starting with tmp, I used this command:

 find -type d -name tmp* -exec rmdir {} \;

And it does the trick, but this command is exiting with an error code:

find: `./tmp09098': No such file or directory

What causing failing my build.

Can anyone tell me how I can delete those folders without getting the error?

After trying what @anubhava suggested and quoted 'temp*',

find -type d -name 'tmp*' -exec rmdir {} \;

I still get the same error:

find: `./tmp0909565g': No such file or directory

find: `./tmp09095': No such file or directory

When running:

find -type d -name 'tmp*' -exec ls -ld '{}' \;

This is the result:

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 16 10:08 ./tmp0909565g
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 16 10:07 ./tmp09095
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 16 10:08 ./tmp09094544656

same issue - different warning+++> find: cannot delete `/tmp/tmp': Directory not empty — Shahar Hamuzim Rajuan, Jun 16 '15 at 10:11
find: paths must precede expression: rm Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D help|tree|search|stat|rates|opt|exec] [path...] [expression] — Shahar Hamuzim Rajuan, Jun 16 '15 at 11:27
it also delets the /tmp folder i'm in, so I get another warning : find: `/tmp/tmp': No such file or directory — Shahar Hamuzim Rajuan, Jun 16 '15 at 11:32
By the way I don't mind putting exit 0 at the end as long as I know it actually deletes the files\folders — Shahar Hamuzim Rajuan, Jun 16 '15 at 11:57
This should work: `find . -type d -name 'tmp*' -mindepth 1 -exec rm -rf '{}' \; -prune` — anubhava, Jun 16 '15 at 12:07

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-16T12:47:59.793

5

You should quote the pattern otherwise it will be expanded by shell on command line:

find . -type d -name 'tmp*' -mindepth 1 -exec rm -rf '{}' \; -prune

-prune causes find to not descend into the current file/dir.

edited Jun 16 '15 at 12:47

answered Jun 16 '15 at 07:01

anubhava

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I tried to quote but I'm still getting this error message – Shahar Hamuzim Rajuan Jun 16 '15 at 07:06
It looks like he first delete it and only than trying to find it, but the directory isn't there because it was deleted – Shahar Hamuzim Rajuan Jun 16 '15 at 07:07
Can you paste output of `find -type d -name 'tmp*' -exec ls -ld '{}' \;` in question – anubhava Jun 16 '15 at 07:09
I pasted ^ in the question – Shahar Hamuzim Rajuan Jun 16 '15 at 07:19
I pasted the ls -ld in the question ^ – Shahar Hamuzim Rajuan Jun 16 '15 at 07:49
1

Thanks @anubhava, Worked like a charm – Shahar Hamuzim Rajuan Jun 16 '15 at 14:20

scottgwald · Answer 2 · 2015-06-16T10:55:59.600

1

This works for me:

    #! /bin/bash

    tmpdirs=`find . -type d -name "tmp*"`

    echo "$tmpdirs" |

    while read dir;
    do
     echo "Removing directory $dir"
     rm -r $dir;
    done;

edited Jun 16 '15 at 10:55

answered Jun 16 '15 at 09:11

scottgwald

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4
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it doesn't fail my build , but it doesn't delete anything – Shahar Hamuzim Rajuan Jun 16 '15 at 10:20
To clarify: it never deleted anything in the first place, or it stopped deleting things properly when you added `2> /dev/null` ? – scottgwald Jun 16 '15 at 10:42
1

it stopped deleting things properly when you added 2> /dev/null – Shahar Hamuzim Rajuan Jun 16 '15 at 10:47
Thanks, But I ended up using @anubhava answer – Shahar Hamuzim Rajuan Jun 16 '15 at 14:20

Deleting a directory starting with a specific string in shell script

2 Answers2