/ 
App-rmhere-0.08
River stage one • 1 direct dependent • 1 total dependent
/ rmhere

NAME

rmhere - Delete files in current directory

VERSION

This document describes version 0.08 of rmhere (from Perl distribution App-rmhere), released on 2017-07-07.

SYNOPSIS

In a directory with many files which you want to delete:

% rmhere -f

To show progress:

% rmhere -fp

To show progress and count the number of files first (so it'll show percentage up to 100% and estimated completion time):

% rmhere -fP

Delete recursively, set location:

% rmhere -Rf --here /tmp/files

Don't actually delete files, only show:

% rmhere -f --dry-run

Only delete files matching a wildcard:

% rmhere --nodir -R --match '*.txt'

DESCRIPTION

NOTE: Early release, some options not yet implemented: --dir, --file, --match, --recursive.

When deleting many files in a directory (thousands, millions), the venerable rm Unix command is rather cumbersome to use. If you issue rm * the shell will usually complain with "Argument list too long" because it expands the wildcard first. You can also use find ./ -type f -maxdepth 1 -delete. This rmhere command is equivalent to that, with some extra options and features:

  • Progress report

  • Dry-run

    Just set DRY_RUN=1 or --dry-run to enter dry-run (simulation) mode.

  • Recursive option

    Using -R.

For safety, the default behavior is -i. That means, if rmhere is executed without argument, it will ask before deleting each file.

PERFORMANCE NOTES

My system: customer SATA HDD 7200rpm, Debian/Linux, ext3fs, Core i5-2400 3.1GHz. rmhere performs worse than rm for small to medium number of files (1-200k files), but as the number of files approaches 1+ million, there are practically no difference in performance as the bottleneck lies in the filesystem. Some numbers:

Creating 200k files using touch `seq 1 200000`: 5s.

Deleting 200k files using rm: 6s.

Deleting 200k files using rmhere -fP: 1m10s.

Creating 1 million files using touch `seq 1 200000`;touch `seq 200001 400000`;touch `seq 400001 600000`; touch `seq 600001 800000`; touch `seq 800001 1000000`: 32s.

Deleting 1 million files using rm fails ("Argument list too long").

Deleting 1 million files using find -type f | xargs -n 50000 rm: about 30m.

Deleting 1 million files using rmhere -fP: about 30m.

OPTIONS

* marks required options.

Main options

--estimate

Count files first before start deleting.

With this opotion, the program will do an `opendir` and list the directory first. This can take several minutes if the directory is large, so the program will not start deleting after several minutes. But with this option, we know how many files we want to delete, so the progress report will know when to reach 100%.

--force

Equivalent to --nointeractive.

See --no-interactive.

--here=s

Override current directory.

--no-interactive, -i
--progress, -p

Show progress report.

-f

Equivalent to --nointeractive.

See --no-interactive.

-P

Equivalent to --progress --estimate.

See --progress.

Configuration options

--config-path=filename

Set path to configuration file.

Can be specified multiple times.

--config-profile=s

Set configuration profile to use.

--no-config

Do not use any configuration file.

Environment options

--no-env

Do not read environment for default options.

Output options

--format=s

Choose output format, e.g. json, text.

Default value:

undef
--json

Set output format to json.

--naked-res

When outputing as JSON, strip result envelope.

Default value:

0

By default, when outputing as JSON, the full enveloped result is returned, e.g.:

[200,"OK",[1,2,3],{"func.extra"=>4}]

The reason is so you can get the status (1st element), status message (2nd element) as well as result metadata/extra result (4th element) instead of just the result (3rd element). However, sometimes you want just the result, e.g. when you want to pipe the result for more post-processing. In this case you can use `--naked-res` so you just get:

[1,2,3]

Other options

--dry-run

Run in simulation mode (also via DRY_RUN=1).

--help, -h, -?

Display help message and exit.

--version, -v

Display program's version and exit.

COMPLETION

This script has shell tab completion capability with support for several shells.

bash

To activate bash completion for this script, put:

complete -C rmhere rmhere

in your bash startup (e.g. ~/.bashrc). Your next shell session will then recognize tab completion for the command. Or, you can also directly execute the line above in your shell to activate immediately.

It is recommended, however, that you install shcompgen which allows you to activate completion scripts for several kinds of scripts on multiple shells. Some CPAN distributions (those that are built with Dist::Zilla::Plugin::GenShellCompletion) will even automatically enable shell completion for their included scripts (using shcompgen) at installation time, so you can immediately have tab completion.

tcsh

To activate tcsh completion for this script, put:

complete rmhere 'p/*/`rmhere`/'

in your tcsh startup (e.g. ~/.tcshrc). Your next shell session will then recognize tab completion for the command. Or, you can also directly execute the line above in your shell to activate immediately.

It is also recommended to install shcompgen (see above).

other shells

For fish and zsh, install shcompgen as described above.

CONFIGURATION FILE

This script can read configuration files. Configuration files are in the format of IOD, which is basically INI with some extra features.

By default, these names are searched for configuration filenames (can be changed using --config-path): ~/.config/rmhere.conf, ~/rmhere.conf, or /etc/rmhere.conf.

All found files will be read and merged.

To disable searching for configuration files, pass --no-config.

You can put multiple profiles in a single file by using section names like [profile=SOMENAME] or [SOMESECTION profile=SOMENAME]. Those sections will only be read if you specify the matching --config-profile SOMENAME.

You can also put configuration for multiple programs inside a single file, and use filter program=NAME in section names, e.g. [program=NAME ...] or [SOMESECTION program=NAME]. The section will then only be used when the reading program matches.

Finally, you can filter a section by environment variable using the filter env=CONDITION in section names. For example if you only want a section to be read if a certain environment variable is true: [env=SOMEVAR ...] or [SOMESECTION env=SOMEVAR ...]. If you only want a section to be read when the value of an environment variable has value equals something: [env=HOSTNAME=blink ...] or [SOMESECTION env=HOSTNAME=blink ...]. If you only want a section to be read when the value of an environment variable does not equal something: [env=HOSTNAME!=blink ...] or [SOMESECTION env=HOSTNAME!=blink ...]. If you only want a section to be read when an environment variable contains something: [env=HOSTNAME*=server ...] or [SOMESECTION env=HOSTNAME*=server ...]. Note that currently due to simplistic parsing, there must not be any whitespace in the value being compared because it marks the beginning of a new section filter or section name.

List of available configuration parameters:

estimate (see --estimate)
format (see --format)
here (see --here)
interactive (see --no-interactive)
naked_res (see --naked-res)
progress (see --progress)

ENVIRONMENT

RMHERE_OPT => str

Specify additional command-line options.

FILES

~/.config/rmhere.conf

~/rmhere.conf

/etc/rmhere.conf

HOMEPAGE

Please visit the project's homepage at https://metacpan.org/release/App-rmhere.

SOURCE

Source repository is at https://github.com/perlancar/perl-App-rmhere.

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests on the bugtracker website https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=App-rmhere

When submitting a bug or request, please include a test-file or a patch to an existing test-file that illustrates the bug or desired feature.

SEE ALSO

rm, find

AUTHOR

perlancar <perlancar@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2017, 2015, 2014 by perlancar@cpan.org.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.