simple cron job

[Shar Hunter]

I have a fax application running on our system, and it dumps the fax file to a directory I use for other stuff. I go in every day and delete the fax file receipts. They are always the exact same size '411'. I need help with the proper use of rm to remove files of a certian size. How do you issue the command? So I can put it in crontab, and save myself time.

Thanks.

[Pete Randall]

Troy,

Use find with -size c (for characters). See man find.

HTH,
Pete

[Stefan Farrelly]

This script will do the job;

cd
ll|awk '{print $5" "$9}'|while read
do
read A B
[ $A -eq 411 ] && echo $B
done


The reason its done this way is to pump only the size and filenames into the while loop and if the size = 411 then remove the file ($B). Its very safe.

[PIYUSH D. PATEL]

Hi,

Login as root and give

# crontab -e

Then it will open a file and there you can type

30 21 * * * /usr/bin/rm

save the file an exit

Then your cron job will be activated at 21:30 daily

Piyush

[Stefan Farrelly]

oops, change the echo $B to rm $B

[Steven Sim Kok Leong · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Put this in your cron job:

cd /dir
rm -f `find . -size 411c -print`

Be sure to test it out by printing out the find output first i.e.

# cd /dir
# find . -size 411c -print

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim Kok Leong

[Helen French]

Try this:

# cd dir
# find . -type f -size 411c -print (for testing)
# find . -type f -size 411c -exec rm {} \; ( for delete these files)

[S.K. Chan]

Try this script ..(say "myscript")
#! /usr/bin/ksh

DIR=/tmp/apps
find $DIR -type f -size 411c -exec rm {} \;

And put this script in your cron (say 2pm everyday), assuming you're using root to run the cron ..

# crontab -e
==> add this line ..
00 14 * * * /bin/myscript
# crontab -l
==> check it ..

[Ian Dennison_1]

Can't you switch off the receipts?

Share and Enjoy! Ian

[Darrell Allen]

Hi Troy,

I like Ian's idea about disabling the receipts. Or perhaps writing them to a directory that is not used for anything else.

Barring those choices, the find is a good option. I would add the -name option (-name "wildcarded_name_here") presuming the file names have something unique to identify them. Is there something command in all the file names?

Darrell

[Shar Hunter]

Thanks got it. Wilson and Leong gave me what I needed.

I simply did not know how to add file size tothe rm command.

The fax receipts have to go somewhere, and they do get looked at sometimes. Just wanted to remove them at the end of the day, to keep from filling a file folder, and also to not have to wade through them when looking for other stuff.

THanks for all the help.