topic Re: Remove empty directory in Operating System - HP-UX

Remove empty directory

Mah_1 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 06:45:02 GMT

Hi ,

Can anyone tell me how to remove empty directories which are created before 30 days .
ie i have to remove empty directores from /usr1 filesystem.

Thanks

Re: Remove empty directory

Kranti Mahmud — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 07:07:54 GMT

Hi mah,

Please execute the following command:

enter the diectory and execute: ls -al

If the directory is empty then execute:

rm -rf /user1

Rgds-kranti

Re: Remove empty directory

Mah_1 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 07:21:46 GMT

There are lakhs of directories.
i want a command which will find out and delete those dirs.

Re: Remove empty directory

Mark McDonald_2 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:09:52 GMT

I dont think I can do it with 1 command, you will need a script.

for DIR in $(find /usr1 -type d - mtime +30)
do
cd $DIR
EMPTY=`ls`
if [[ $EMPTY = "" ]]
then

rm $DIR
fi
done

You will need to tweak this before running on a live system. I am not in front of a unix box to get the commands exactly.

Re: Remove empty directory

V. Nyga — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:21:09 GMT

Hi,

Mark gave you the find command.
Do delete empty dirs check the command 'rmdir' - this command deletes empty directories (see 'man rmdir').

make a test before ...

HTH
Volkmar

Re: Remove empty directory

Matthias Zander — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:01:48 GMT

all in one:

find /usr1 -type d -mtime +30 -depth -exec rmdir {} \; 2>/dev/null

Re: Remove empty directory

Mah_1 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:53:15 GMT

thanks

Re: Remove empty directory

Dennis Handly — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:28:09 GMT

>Matthias: find /usr1 -type d -mtime +30 -depth -exec rmdir {} \; 2>/dev/null

You might want to just redirect rmdir errors and not find errors. And use + for performance:
find /usr1 -type d -mtime +30 -depth -exec rmdir {} 2> /dev/null +

Re: Remove empty directory

Dennis Handly — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:12:44 GMT

>ME: You might want to just redirect rmdir errors and not find errors.

Oops, the only way to get this to work is to create a script to do the rmdir and then redirect stderr:
find /usr1 -type d -mtime +30 -depth -exec rmdir_script {} +

rmdir_script:
#!/usr/bin/ksh
rmdir "$@" 2> /dev/null