Argument list too long

If you have a ton of files in a directory and you need to remove them, but rm says that the "argument list [is] too long", just use find and xargs:

find . -name 'filename*' | xargs rm -vf

This entry was posted on 24/01/2007 (Wednesday) at 9:35 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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© Major Hayden 2012.

1 Comment »

Dave says:

05.02.10 at 08:36

What if the find command says the "Argument list [is] too long"?!

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Welcome! I started this blog as a way to give back to all of the other system administrators who have taught me something in the past. Writing these posts brings me a lot of enjoyment and I hope you find the information useful. If you spot something that's incorrect or confusing, please write a comment and let me know. Drop me a line if there's something you want to know more about and I'll do my best to write a post on the topic.

-- Major Hayden