On Tue, Jan 03, 2017 at 12:15:02AM -0500, Ted Unangst wrote:
> This option is not posix (not like that's stopped find accumulating a dozen
> extensions), but it is in gnu and freebsd (for 20 years). it's also somewhat
> popular among sysadmins and blogs, etc. and perhaps most importantly, it
> nicely solves one of the more troublesome caveats of find (which the man page
> actually covers twice because it's so common and easy to screw up). So I think
> it makes a good addition.
>
> Code snatched from freebsd.
>
> In passing, I'll also note that the man page example is very inefficient.
> $ find . \( -name \*.jpg -o -name \*.gif \) -exec rm {} \;
> This would be much faster with +. We can fix that too, but I'll add that a lot
> of the online advice suggests -delete, and if not available, -exec rm {} \;,
> instead of the smarter + exec. Not surprising since even the man page gets
> this wrong.
>
no opinion on the addition, but if there is a better way to write the
examples that are there, i think you should take the time to do so. i'd
also slightly prefer we show the more traditional way to do it, though i
appreciate that might not make a ton of sense for find(1).
some comments on the man parts:
> Index: find.1
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /cvs/src/usr.bin/find/find.1,v
> retrieving revision 1.91
> diff -u -p -r1.91 find.1
> --- find.1 11 Sep 2015 18:58:16 -0000 1.91
> +++ find.1 3 Jan 2017 05:04:52 -0000
> @@ -182,6 +182,23 @@ was started, rounded up to the next full
> .Ar n
> 24-hour periods.
> .Pp
> +.It Ic -delete
> +Delete found files and/or directories.
i think "and" is sufficiently clear.
> +Always returns true.
> +This executes
> +from the current working directory as
> +.Nm
> +recurses down the tree.
> +It will not attempt to delete a filename with a
> +.Dq Pa /
> +character in its pathname relative to
> +.Dq Pa \&.
i'd use Sq rather than Dq for single letters if you really need it
quoted. and check, but i think you need \& after the dot, not before, or
you'll get a double space injected.
jmc
> +for security reasons.
> +Depth-first traversal processing is implied by this option.
> +The
> +.Ic -delete
> +primary will fail to delete a directory if it is not empty.
> +Following symlinks is incompatible with this option.
> .It Ic -depth
> This primary always evaluates to true.
> The same as specifying the
> @@ -587,6 +604,7 @@ primaries
> .Ic -anewer ,
> .Ic -cmin ,
> .Ic -cnewer ,
> +.Ic -delete ,
> .Ic -empty ,
> .Ic -execdir ,
> .Ic -flags ,
