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Accepted
menteith
Asked: 2018-08-12 05:26:06 +0800 CST

How do I delete files of certain extension that don't have a given string in their filename?

  • 772

I have a directory with files of many extensions in it. I would like to recursively delete *.srt files (and *.srt files only) which don't end with -en.srt (where srt is an extension). I've come up with the following solution and it seems to work fine, however, I'd like to know whether it is 100% correct. 

find . -name "*.srt" ! -name "*-en.srt" -type f -exec rm -rf {} \;
command-line rm

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    ! -- First read the answer completely then use it if you like it -- !

    Your command is correct, however there is no need to use -rf as rm parameters. because you are removing files and not directories.

    Another clear way to write it is (it's almost same as your command):

    find -name '*.srt' -and -not -name '*-en.srt' -type f -exec rm '{}' \;

    or as @steeldriver suggested you can use:

    find -name '*.srt' -and -not -name '*-en.srt' -type f -ok rm '{}' \;

    It will ask for your permission to remove each founded file.

    You can also use -delete instead of rm {} \; however be aware of its dangers:

    Don't forget that the find command line is evaluated as an expres‐ sion, so putting -delete first will make find try to delete everything below the starting points you specified. When testing a find command line that you later intend to use with -delete, you should explicitly specify -depth in order to avoid later surprises. Because -delete implies -depth, you cannot usefully use -prune and -delete together.

    It is always a good idea to test what is going to happen before doing the actual job, so I suggest running:

    find -name '*.srt' -and -not -name '*-en.srt' -type f | grep -i en.srt

    If it return nothing then the actual command will work without any problem and you are good to go... or even:

    find -name '*.srt' -and -not -name '*-en.srt' -type f | less

    to check what's going to be removed.

    And do not forget to quote '{}':

    (when find is being invoked from a shell) it should be quoted (for example, '{}') to protect it from interpretation by shells.

    • 9

  2. Let’s do it solely with bash globbing: With the extglob and globstar options enabled,

    rm **/!(*-en).srt

    deletes every file ending in .srt excluding anything ending in -en.srt from the current as well as any subdirectory.
    If you‘re not sure about an expansion like this, test by prepending echo (see example below).

    Example

    $ tree
.
├── 01.srt
├── 02.srt
├── no-en.srt
├── not-en.srt
├── subdir
│   ├── 01.srt
│   ├── 02.srt
│   ├── no-en.srt
│   └── not-en.srt
└── unrelated.png
$ shopt -s extglob globstar
$ echo rm **/!(*-en).srt
rm 01.srt 02.srt subdir/01.srt subdir/02.srt
$ rm **/!(*-en).srt
$ tree
.
├── no-en.srt
├── not-en.srt
├── subdir
│   ├── no-en.srt
│   └── not-en.srt
└── unrelated.png

    Explanations

    • **/ – with the globstar option enabled this matches any number of directories and subdirectories
    • !(*-en) – with the extglob option enabled this matches anything except the given pattern, so anything not ending in -en
    • 4