Using find - Deleting all files/directories (in L

Question

If we want to delete all files and directories we use, rm -rf *.

But what if i want all files and directories be deleted at a shot, except one particular file?

Is there any command for that? rm -rf * gives the ease of deletion at one shot, but deletes even my favourite file/directory.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

You can type it right in the command-line or use this keystroke in the script

files=`ls -l | grep -v "my_favorite_dir"`; for file in $files; do rm -rvf $file; done

P.S. I suggest -i switch for rm to prevent delition of important data.

P.P.S You can write the small script based on this solution and place it to the /usr/bin (e.g. /usr/bin/rmf). Now you can use it as and ordinary app:

rmf my_favorite_dir

The script looks like (just a sketch):

#!/bin/sh

if [[ -z $1 ]]; then
    files=`ls -l`
else
    files=`ls -l | grep -v $1`
fi;

for file in $files; do
    rm -rvi $file
done;

Answer 2

If it's just one file, one simple way is to move that file to /tmp or something, rm -Rf the directory and then move it back. You could alias this as a simple command.

The other option is to do a find and then grep out what you don't want (using -v or directly using one of finds predicates) and then rming the remaining files.

For a single file, I'd do the former. For anything more, I'd write something custom similar to what thkala said.

Answer 3

Short answer

ls | grep -v "z.txt" | xargs rm

Details:

The thought process for the above command is :

• List all files (ls)
• Ignore one file named "z.txt" (grep -v "z.txt")
• Delete the listed files other than z.txt (xargs rm)

Example

Create 5 files as shown below:

echo "a.txt b.txt c.txt d.txt z.txt" | xargs touch

List all files except z.txt

ls|grep -v "z.txt"

a.txt
b.txt
c.txt
d.txt

We can now delete(rm) the listed files by using the xargs utility :

ls|grep -v "z.txt"|xargs rm

Answer 4

I see a lot of longwinded means here, that work, but with a/ b/ c/ d/ e/

 rm -rf *.* !(b*) 

this removes everything except directory b/ and its contents (assuming your file is in b/. Then just cd b/ and

rm -rf *.* !(filename) 

to remove everything else, but the file (named "filename") that you want to keep.

Answer 5

In bash you have the !() glob operator, which inverts the matched pattern. So to delete everything except the file my_file_name.txt, try this:

shopt -s extglob
rm -f !(my_file_name.txt)

See this article for more details: http://karper.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/deleting-all-files-in-a-directory-with-exceptions/

Answer 6

find can be a very good friend:

$ ls
a/  b/  c/
$ find * -maxdepth 0 -name 'b' -prune -o -exec rm -rf '{}' ';'
$ ls
b/
$ 

Explanation:

• find * -maxdepth 0: select everything selected by * without descending into any directories

• -name 'b' -prune: do not bother (-prune) with anything that matches the condition -name 'b'

• -o -exec rm -rf '{}' ';': call rm -rf for everything else

By the way, another, possibly simpler, way would be to move or rename your favourite directory so that it is not in the way:

$ ls
a/  b/  c/
$ mv b .b
$ ls
a/  c/
$ rm -rf *
$ mv .b b
$ ls
b/