What Unix command(s) would I use to remove all files within a directory that contain a specified string?
Specifically, I have thousands of files in /var/spool/mqueue/ that are to a junk address. I do not want to download them, but to delete them from the queue. Each header file will contain the TO address 'junk@mydomain.com'. I want to delete every header file containing that TO address, and to delete is corresponding message file. The header file names all start with 'qf' plus message number, while the message file name starts with 'df' followed by the same message number.
Any ideas how I would do this?
Thanks
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Thanks, Amit. I think we are getting close.
When I execute the command you suggested, all the 'rm' commands all appear as follows:
rm /var/spool/mqueue/qfl7PLPr
I thought the 'rm' command should stop after 'rm /var/spool/mqueue/qfl7PLPr
I am amazed at how much you can construct in a single command line when you really understand Unix.
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by: amit_gPosted on 2007-08-25 at 22:28:48ID: 19770187
Run this ...
find /full/path/to/dir -name 'qf*' -exec echo grep -i 'junk@mydomain.com' {} \> /dev/null \&\& echo {} \; | sh | awk '{s=$0;sub("qf", "df", s); print "rm " $0 " " s;}'
if you see rm commands with 2 filenames in each command. Verify that thos are the files that you want to delete. If so Run the above mentioned command and pipe the result to sh i.e.
find /full/path/to/dir -name 'qf*' -exec echo grep -i 'junk@mydomain.com' {} \> /dev/null \&\& echo {} \; | sh | awk '{s=$0;sub("qf", "df", s); print "rm " $0 " " s;}' | sh