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Delete tens of thousans of files at one go

Terminal - Delete tens of thousans of files at one go
rm -rf `ls | head -5000`
2009-02-25 22:52:23
User: rockon
Functions: head rm
-3
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Delete tens of thousans of files at one go

Deletes thousands of files at one go, I'm not able to recall the exact # of files that rm can delete at one go(apprx. around 7000.)

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Alternatives

There are 2 alternatives - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives

Know a better way?

If you can do better, submit your command here.

What others think

Well, I do not think rm has some limitation on the number of files it can handle. What has a limitation, however, is the length of the command-line you can use, which is 4M for bash, if I remember well.

The real trick here is to use xargs:

ls | xargs rm, and you myriad of files is going to go apparently in one shot.

Comment by pruneau 220 weeks and 6 days ago

Your point of view

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