How to change script for deleting files while names misses symbols?

Question

I am trying remove files by names according this answer How to delete files listed in a text file

But get following error:

rm: cannot remove 'var/Resources/Images/fd29d33d.jpg'$'\r': No such file or directory

I understand that every line in txt file misses an / at the start and something wrong with end of lines: \r in the end (except last file). How can I change this command xargs rm < file to work properly with my file? File contains about 8kk lines

It is not a homework, I am not an admin and need this to be done.

Did you create your text file on Windows? it looks like it has DOS-style (CRLF) line endings — steeldriver, May 24 '22 at 15:04
@steeldriver no, it has been generated by program, microsoft .net btw — Mateech, May 24 '22 at 15:05
So ... not Windows but Microsoft ... regardless, either fix the program to use the appropriate EOL, or fix the file by removing the carriage return characters. See for example How to change Windows line-ending to Unix version — steeldriver, May 24 '22 at 15:16
@steeldriver thanks, will try. How can I add / in front of every line also? — Mateech, May 24 '22 at 15:19
That's probably not necessary provided that all the paths are rooted at the same directory (e.g. /) - you'd just need to cd to that directory first so that they are all valid relative pathnames. — steeldriver, May 24 '22 at 15:40

Joaquín Pérez · Answer 1 · 2022-05-26T10:32:48.053

1

In order to add a / at the beginning of each file, and to remove the trailing characters after the first ', you can try this command instead of xargs rm < file:

sed 's/^/\//' file | sed "s/'.*$//" | xargs ls

If the above command correctly lists the files, you must change ls to rm so that the files are actually deleted, this way:

sed 's/^/\//' file | sed "s/'.*$//" | xargs rm

I hope this helps.

edited May 26 '22 at 10:32

answered May 26 '22 at 10:14

Joaquín Pérez

11

How to change script for deleting files while names misses symbols?

1 Answers1