As the title says, I just started with linux mint and am falling in love with bash scripts 😍 Actually I’m not sure if it’s considered a script, but I want to delete the last 2 files in all subfolders in a folder. So far I’ve (after great effort) got the terminal to list the files, but I want to delete them. Here is how I get them listed:
for f in *; do ls $f | tail -n 2; done
All their names come satisfyingly up in the terminal. Now what? I tried adding | xargs rm but that didn’t delete them. I also tried something with find command but that didn’t work either. Some folders have 3 items, so I want to delete #2 and 3. Some folders have 15 items so I want to delete #14 and 15. Folders are arranged by name, so it’s always the last 2 that I want to delete.
It’s frustrating to be sooooo clooooose, but also very fun. Any help is appreciated!
xargs rm -rf?You mean like that? rm -rf followed by a question mark does not inspire confidence XD
Additionally, for safety you can add the
iflag to be promoted to confirm each removal. It may be tedious depending on the number of files, but it may also save you from deleting files and/or directories you don’t want deleted.For clarity, be careful with that
-rfcombo of flags. As another commenter mentioned,-rmeans recursive, which will delete directories and their contents. You’re talking about deleting files. If you do not want directories and their contents removed, DO NOT use the-rflag.Thank you for the tips, but now I’m getting “Cannot remove: No such file or directory” all the way down! The files are there, I see them, they come up in the terminal, but for some reason xargs rm does not want to delete them. When I put the -f flag, rm doesn’t give an error but the files are still there! wtf
When you run the command without the
xargsbit, like this:for f in \*; do ls $f | tail -n 2; done\,Does the output give you the full file path, or just the file names?
The full file path will look something like:
/dir1/dir2/actual-fileAnd of course the file name would just be:
some-fileIf you’re getting just the file name, that’s the problem. Unless you’re in the directory with the file you wish to delete,
rmneeds the full path.Edit: grammar
Yea that must be it! It’s spitting out just the file name and not the whole path. There is only 1 level of depth, so I want to remove
so how do I get the whole path into xargs? I tried
xargs "$f"/but fortunately that didn’t work because it was trying to delete all the directories lmao XDHere’s the command to delete the files:
for f in *; do find ./"$f" -type f | sort | tail -n 2 | xargs -n 1 rm; doneIf you want to insure it will target the correct files, first run this command (I HIGHLY recommend you do this first. Verify BEFORE you delete so you don’t lose data):
for f in *; do find ./"$f" -type f | sort | tail -n 2; doneI’ll be adding another comment reply with a breakdown of the command shortly (just need to write it up)
I’m working on a new command to do this, give me a few minutes and I should have it.
this will break pretty badly if you have filenames with spaces or newlines in them. so to make this actually robust, you now get to learn about
find -print0,xargs -0, and why you always, always need to add""around variables in bash.Can find be used with tail?
Thank you for the tips, but now I’m getting “Cannot remove: No such file or directory” all the way down! The files are there, I see them, they come up in the terminal, but for some reason xargs rm does not want to delete them. When I put the -f flag, rm doesn’t give an error but the files are still there! wtf
find can be used with tail, but if you’re doing nul-delimited stuff (-print0, -0), then you’ll want tail to run in nul-delimited mode too (-z apparently).
or you can say “fuck files with newlines in them, i aint supporting that shit”, and then you just need the “” to still support filenames with spaces.
yes. that’s what I suggested… the question mark was there to ask you if you tried that :-D I’m at work, pretty busy :-D I hope you read the
rmmanual.-rmeans recursive-fmeans force, which will delete the files/directories without interactionOh I see, lol. Now I’m getting “Cannot remove: No such file or directory” all the way down! The files are there, I see them, they come up in the terminal, but for some reason xargs rm does not want to delete them. When I put the -f flag, rm doesn’t give an error but the files are still there! wtf