topic find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i {} \; in Operating System - Linux

find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i {} \;

Prasad Joshi — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:16:52 GMT

I am executing this command.
I am expecting it to ask me whethere or not to delete the file. But, this is what I am getting.

# ls -i
3232 -l

# find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i {} \;
rm: remove regular file `./-l'? #

As you can see, it is directly showing next command prompt without waiting for me to provide any input.

Re: find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i {} \;

Robert-Jan Goossens_1 — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:22:26 GMT

Prasad,

try this,

# ls -i
11521 -l
# find . -inum 11521
./-l
# find . -inum 11521 -xdev -exec mv {} rj \;
# ls
rj

regards,
Robert-Jan

Re: find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i {} \;

Antonio Cardoso_1 — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:22:39 GMT

maybe you could try something like:

for file in `find . -inum 3232`; do
rm -i $file
done

Re: find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i {} \;

RAC_1 — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:23:41 GMT

What shell?? It is working fine for me. Try following.

find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i "{}" \;

Re: find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i {} \;

Patrice Le Guyader — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:23:49 GMT

Hello,

Why not using directly :

find . -inum 3232 -ok rm {} \;

normally it should prompt you for accepting or not the command. look at the man page.

Regards
Pat

Re: find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i {} \;

Arunvijai_4 — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:25:24 GMT

Hello Prasad,

You can do this way,

# cat test.sh

for remove_file in `ind . -inum 3232`
do

rm -i $remove_file

done

# chmod 755 test.sh
# ./test.sh

-Arun

Re: find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i {} \;

Muthukumar_5 — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:30:11 GMT

Simply as,

# rm -i `find . -inum 3232`

will help you out.

--
Muthu

Re: find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i {} \;

Prasad Joshi — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:38:18 GMT

Hi Robert-Jan Goossens,

I tried this.

# find . -inum 2275 -xdev -exec mv {} rj \;

find: warning: you have specified the -xdev option after a non-option argument -inum, but options are not positional (-xdev affects tests specified before it as well as those specified after it). Please specify options before other arguments.

# ls
rj

It seems it is working but, giving some warning messgaes.

Re: find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i {} \;

RAC_1 — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:44:16 GMT

Warnign message is OK. You were running into problem beause, you file had a "-" as char in it. So first moving it to another file and then removing it.

Re: find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i {} \;

Prasad Joshi — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:46:35 GMT

Hi All,

Thanks for instant replay.

The same can be accomplished with

1. for f in `find . -inum 2275`
do
rm -i $f
done

2. rm -i `find . -inum 3232`

3. find . -inum 3232 -ok rm {} \;

4. find . -inum 3232 -xdev -exec mv {} rj\;

Thanks a lot.

Re: find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i {} \;

Prasad Joshi — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:50:18 GMT

I forgot

6. rm ./-l

7. rm $PWD/-l

Would also work.

Thanks a lot.

Re: find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i {} \;

rick jones — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 21:04:15 GMT

Be VERY careful with that find command. IIRC inode numbers are only unique within a given filesystem. If there is more than one filesystem below "." you may remove more files than you expected.

I believe there is an option to find to tell it to not cross filesystem boundaries. If so, it would probably be a very good idea to add that.

Re: find . -inum 3232 -exec rm -i {} \;

Prasad Joshi — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 02:33:53 GMT

Hi rick,

Thanks "rick" for your suggestion. I will be carefull from onwards.

You deserve 10 pts, but i can't give them, as i have closed thread.

Thanks a lot.
Prasad.