rm interview questions
Top rm frequently asked interview questions
I'm trying to delete a bunch of files in a certain directory (on Mac OS X using Terminal)
ls | grep \([1-9]\) | xargs rm
should do the trick, but it doesn't. I'm trying to delete any file with a single digit in parentheses in the filename (duplicates downloaded from the web), but it ends up doing something like this:
> rm: 520syllabus2010: No such file or
> directory rm: (3).pdf: No such file or
> directory
because it doesn't interpret the space correct. It should delete "520syllabus2010 (3).pdf"
What's the proper way of doing this?
Thanks,
Jeff
Source: (StackOverflow)
I have a folder which has many files. Some of the data files are labelled 1, 2, 3, ..., 300
I want to remove these data files using the terminal. How do I do this?
I want to do something like
rm some-regular-expression-giving-numbers-from-0--300
Source: (StackOverflow)
I need to delete all files in a directory, but exclude some of them. For example, in a directory with the files a b c ... z
, I need to delete all except for u
and p
. Is there an easy way to do this?
Source: (StackOverflow)
I had a folder I didn't want named '~', so from the command line I typed
rm -rf ~
and accidentally deleted my home folder (since ~ resolved to /home/username). Is there any way back or do I basically need to recreate the account from scratch?
Source: (StackOverflow)
Intention:
rm -rf string*
Problem:
rm -rf string *
The first case is a legitimate and common use of rm, a small typo can cause a lot of problems in the second case. Is there a simple way to smartly protect against an accidental trailing or leading wildcard?
Source: (StackOverflow)
I had a dir fill up with millions of gif images. Too many for rm command.
I have been trying the find command like this:
find . -name "*.gif" -print0 | xargs -0 rm
Problem is, it bogs down my machine really bad, and causes time outs for customers since it's a server.
Is there any way that is quicker to delete all these files...without locking up the machine?
Source: (StackOverflow)
Possible Duplicate:
Removing file with strange characters in filename in OS X
I have a folder that has a file who's name is Icons and ends with an additiona unprintable character. I can see the unprintable if I ls with -B option:
$ ls -B
$ Icon\015
if I use ls -b I get:
$ ls -b
$ Icon\r
I would like to delete file but I cannot find a way to type the unprintable character. If I do:
$ rm Icon\015
I get:
$ Icon\015: No such file or directory
If I do:
$ rm Icon\r
I get:
$ Icon\r: No such file or directory
I could just delete the whole folder, but I need a more generic way to do this since such files pop up on many users folders.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I've tried deleting a directory using "rm -rf" and I'm getting the message "Directory not empty":
Bens-MacBook-Pro:please benjaminhocking$ ls -lart empty_directory/
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 5 benjaminhocking staff 170 Aug 27 14:46 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 benjaminhocking staff 102 Aug 27 15:28 ..
Bens-MacBook-Pro:please benjaminhocking$ rm -rf empty_directory/
rm: empty_directory/: Directory not empty
Bens-MacBook-Pro:please benjaminhocking$ rmdir empty_directory/
rmdir: empty_directory/: Directory not empty
If I try the same thing using Finder (dragging the folder to the Trash), I get the message
The operation can’t be completed because the item “empty_directory” is
in use.
I've tried doing xattr -d com.apple.quarantine
, purely out of superstition, but it did no good.
A probably important piece of context is that this directory was initially in a directory that should've been deleted by a "make clean" command I issued prior to Terminal locking up on me, after which a little over half of the other programs I had running also locked up, including Skype, and eventually the OS itself. I ended up having to reboot the computer by pressing and holding the power key.
Edit to add: Another important piece of information I left off was that this was happening in an encrypted folder à la encfs
. I was able to track down the corresponding folder in the encrypted side of things and delete it there. I still don't know why I couldn't do it from the decrypted side of things like I normally do. I'll leave this unanswered for now in case anyone has a good answer for that.
Source: (StackOverflow)
Some time ago I erroneously deleted my home folder because I ran a rm -rf *
on the wrong terminal, whose working directory was the home folder!
I wish I had an alias for the rm
command, but it was not the case.
Now, I am planning to make a script as an alias for rm
.
Do you have any best practice to suggest?
Thanks.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I have read some time ago (can't find the reference) that using such an alias as alias rm="rm -i"
was very bad.
Is there historical evidence or common sense explanation for that fact?
I would imagine that it gives a user a bad habit of relying on the confirmation prompt to check his command, which could lead to disasters if he does so on another profile that doesn't have the alias.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I Tried to delete files that starts with A and ends with 2 numbers but It doesn't do a thing.
What I tried:
rm ^A*[0..9]2$
Where am I wrong?
Source: (StackOverflow)
is it possible to use rm to remove files and directories matching a pattern recursively without using other commands?
Source: (StackOverflow)
I'm using terminal on a Ubuntu machine and there is a file that I would like to delete. The file's name is \
(just a backslash).
Now usually I would just do
rm filename
However if I do rm \
then it thinks I'm trying to write a multi-line command.
How can I delete this file? I know that I could just use the GUI file system, but that's not very efficient.
So, how can I delete (in terminal) a file called \
?
Source: (StackOverflow)
I've couple of files that I cannot remove using rf -Rf
command. I'm the owner of those file and the group assigned to those files is also a group my user is in. What's even weirder is that I can edit their content and I can change the permissions for them, but I can't move or delete them.
ls -al
total 12
dr-xr-xr-x 3 rayell pg1083760 4096 2010-10-10 10:00 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 rayell pg1083760 4096 2011-09-02 04:33 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 rayell pg1083760 0 2011-09-02 06:38 default.settings.php
drwxrwxrwx 2 rayell pg1083760 4096 2011-09-02 04:33 files
-rwxrwxrwx 1 rayell pg1083760 0 2011-09-02 06:38 settings.php
rm -Rf *
rm: cannot remove `default.settings.php': Permission denied
rm: cannot remove directory `files': Permission denied
rm: cannot remove `settings.php': Permission denied
Can anyone tell me what is happening?
Source: (StackOverflow)