thanks for all the inputs !!! I ended up using the rmtree command...
I needed to execute this in Perl.... because I have a web based emailer written in Perl... One part of the program will create an upload directory for the user ... however... I couldn't get a quota on it.... so I just delete the directory and re-create it when they log in..... thus.... they can't upload a million files and take up hard disk space... (well, I suppose they could for one session...) Anyway... I'm really new to Perl.... and I'm guessing that I can't run shell commands within a perl script... thanks Mike The following message was sent by Hamma Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Wed, 18 Jul 2001 04:41:29 -0700 (PDT). > Mike's Question: > > I want to delete a directory that will have files in > it...I don't know the name of the files.... there for > wildcards might be needed.... > > I understand that "rmdir" will wipe out an empty > directory....and "unlink" will wipe out files (only if > > I know the names of the files) > > What would be a nice command to remove a dirtory that > had files in it? Even better.... what would be a nice > command to delete all files in one directory... > (leaving the directory intact) > -------------------------------------------------------From > Lamer: > > Simply Speaking, This would have been done better with > > these shell commands: > > # cd /directory > # rm -rf * > # cd ..; > ------------------------------------------------------- > >From Joost: > > #!/usr/bin/perl -w > use File::Path; > rmtree("some/dir", 0, 1); > > =pod > man File::Path > =cut > -------------------------------------------------------From > Craig: > > to remove a dirtory that had files in it: > > - rm -rf directory > > to delete all files in one directory > (leaving the directory intact) > > - rm -rf directory/* > > to delete everything in a directory, including > subdirectories > > - find . -type f | xargs rm -f > > to delete all files in a directory or its > subdirectories, > but keep the directory structure intact. > > Perl isn't required. > > -------------------------------------------------------From > Bud: > > >Even better.... what would be a nice command to > delete all filesin one directory... (leaving the > directory intact) > > #! /usr/bin/perl -w > > $dir = "/path/to/dir"; > > opendir(DIR, $dir) or die "can't opendir $dir: $!"; > > while ( defined ($file = readdir DIR) ) { > next if $file =~ /^\.\.?$/; # skip . and .. > unlink $file; > } > > Quick and dirty, but I think it will delete all files > in one directory. Won't handle subdirs. Then you > could probably just > > close(DIR); > rmdir $dir; > > to get rid of the directory. > > ------------------------------------------------------- > >From Larry Wall: > "There's more than one way to do things" > > A fine example of life imitating art ;-) > > Scott Hamma > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail > http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >