I just experimented a bit in linux and ended up getting very many files in one and the same folder. Now when I try to do
rm -f folder/*.png
I get
-bash: /bin/rm: Argument list too long
Is there some easy way to get past this?
Own work:
I suppose I could make an ugly script which loops through rm on the result of something like
ls /folder/ | head -100 | grep ".*\.png"
But really, there must be an easier Gnu way to do it?
I would do something like:
ls -1 | grep "\.png$" | xargs -L 50 rm -f
This will match (and remove) only files ending with .png.
find . -name .php -exec rm -f {} would work as well. I generally prefer pipelines to find because that's how my brain works
– David King
Dec 07 '15 at 17:52
grep '\.png$', to make sure it won't match file names like abcpng nor a.png.bkp. Also, in your previous comment you wrote php instead of png, but I know it was just a typo (=
– Kira
Dec 07 '15 at 18:07
When you use rm -f folder/*.png or even simpler rm * then the shell (not rm) will expand the * to all relevant files. It will then call rm with all the filenames expanded. (e.g. if will do a `rm filename1 filename2 filename3 filename4 filename5 filename6 filename7 .... filename12345'
If that list is too long to pass you will get this error.
Solution: Split it in smaller chunks, or do not use the shell. E.g. find with --delete is a nice option.
find /path/to/file -name "*.PNG" -delete \;find /path/to/file -name "*.PNG" -exec rm \; (runs rm once for each file)find /path/to/file -name "*.PNG" -delete + (groups them into chunks just small enough to pass to rm)The first option is the one I usually use. First tested with -print.
find ... | xargs ...answer) – Mark Plotnick Dec 07 '15 at 17:34