Removing files with rm using find and xargs

Question

When I do

rm file.txt

or

rm *.txt

I'm prompted for each file, since I didn't specify the -f option to rm.

But when I do this:

find . -type f -name '*.txt' | xargs rm

the files are removed without the confirmation.

What is the logics behind this? Is it possible to find the reason in some documentation? I cannot explain why this would be the case.

The behaviour you describe is that of 'rm -i'. Do you have an alias set in you shell for the rm command? Does 'alias rm' give any output? — Harald Gliebe, Mar 16 '17 at 07:47
`alias rm` gives the output `rm -i`, so that explains it. Thanks — Martin G, Mar 16 '17 at 07:48

score 30 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 16 '17 at 07:52

30

You have an alias set for the rm command to 'rm -i'. Therefore if you invoke the command directly as in

rm file.txt

or

rm *.txt

the alias will be expanded. If you will call it with xargs as in

find . -type f -name '*.txt' | xargs rm

The rm is passed as a simple string argument to xargs and is later invoked by xargs without alias substitution of the shell. You alias is probably defined in ~/.bashrc, in case you want to remove it.

answered Mar 16 '17 at 07:52

Harald Gliebe

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This relies on spaces in file names... careful. Use print0 instead. https://stackoverflow.com/a/42119953/370238 – Ray Foss Oct 15 '21 at 21:40
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DON"T USE COMMANDS FROM THIS ANSWER. This commands are unsafe for space containing filenames. Use `find -exec` – Mihail H. Jun 04 '22 at 21:37
For example, if you have two files (`config file.txt` and `config`) then `find . -type f -name '*.txt' | xargs rm` will delete `config` file but not `config file.txt` file. – Mihail H. Jun 04 '22 at 21:46

score 18 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 18 '22 at 11:44

18

you can use this simple command to solve your problem

find . -type f -name '*.txt' -delete

edited Sep 18 '22 at 11:44

Nahum

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answered Oct 27 '21 at 11:07

Stephen

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Nice, but there's a typo, it should be `-type`, not `--type`, otherwise this solution worked well for me – Levon Dec 29 '21 at 17:07

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 04 '20 at 11:46

2

Depending on your version of xargs you may have the --no-run-if-empty GNU extension option available to you:

find . -type f -name '*.txt' | xargs  --no-run-if-empty  rm -rf

answered Aug 04 '20 at 11:46

Angelos

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I know the question is about Linux, but if you are a Mac user like me, this option is implicit and is not needed. – Rafs Dec 16 '22 at 12:58

Removing files with rm using find and xargs

3 Answers3