Very Computer

When trying to delete about 1000 of files with the "rm *.*" command from a
csh script I get the error message "Argument
list too long". I guess the shell is trying to make a huge list of the
filenames and then trying to delete each file. Does anybody
have a solution for this? The filenames mostly consists of random numbers so
a solution with, e.g, "rm *153.*" is no good.

Thanks in advance
Ola Martensson

e.g. find <dir name> -type f -name "[0-9]*" -exec rm {} \; -print

Best regards
Kevin.

I would strongly suggest using

find <dir name> -type f -name "[0-9]*" -exec echo rm {} \; | more

the first time in order to verify that only the proper files will be
removed.

--- Brian

# This solves the problem when there are 100 times too many files
foreach i ( {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0}{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0} )
        rm *$i.*
end

or

# This solves the problem when there are 1000 times too many files
foreach i ( {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0}{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0}{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0} )
        rm *$i.*
end

You might need a "set nonomatch"
and to use "/bin/rm -f" instead of rm (if you have "rm" alias to "rm -i")

--
Bruce  <barnett at crd. ge. com> (speaking as myself, and not a GE employee)

--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Monty Taylor
Best Consulting -- Seattle, WA

Quote:>Hi,

>When trying to delete about 1000 of files with the "rm *.*" command from a
>csh script I get the error message "Argument
>list too long". I guess the shell is trying to make a huge list of the
>filenames and then trying to delete each file. Does anybody
>have a solution for this? The filenames mostly consists of random numbers
so
>a solution with, e.g, "rm *153.*" is no good.

>Thanks in advance
>Ola Martensson

rm *.*  would not delete the file my_file, but your approach would.
This is unix, not DOS.  :-)

I personally prefer the find piped to xargs rm approach posted by
others.

Chuck Demas
Needham, Mass.