how to delete all files with specific extension in specific named folders in large tree?

Question

I have large tree, with many pdf files in it. I want to delete the pdf files in this tree, but only those pdf files in sub folders named rules/ There are other type of files inside rules/. The rules/ subfolders have no other subfolders.

For example, I have this tree. Everything below 'source'

  source/
         A/
            rules/*.pdf, *.txt, *.c,etc..
            etc/
         B/
            keep_this.pdf                
            rules/*.pdf
            whatever/
         C/ 
            D/
               rules/*.pdf
               something/

and so on. There are pdf files all over the place, but I only want to delete all the pdf files which are in folders called rules/ and no other place.

I think I need to use

  cd source
  find  / -type d -name "rules"  -print0 | xargs -0 <<<rm *.pdf?? now what?>>>

But I am not sure what to do after getting list of all subfolders named rules/

Any help is appreciated.

On Linux mint.

Answer 1

I would execute a find inside another find. For example, I would execute this command line in order to list the files that would be removed:

$ find /path/to/source -type d -name 'rules' -exec find '{}' -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type f -iname '*.pdf' -print ';'

Then, after checking the list, I would execute:

$ find /path/to/source -type d -name 'rules' -exec find '{}' -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type f -iname '*.pdf' -print -delete ';'

Answer 2

With a shell that supports extended globs and null globs e.g. zsh:

for d in ./**/rules/
do
set -- ${d}*.pdf(N)                               
(( $# > 0 )) && printf %s\\n $@
done

or bash:

shopt -s globstar
shopt -s nullglob
for d in ./**/rules/
do
set -- "${d}"*.pdf
(( $# > 0 )) && printf %s\\n "$@"
done

replace printf %s\\n with rm if you're happy with the result.

---

Since you are on gnu/linux you could also run:

find . -type f -regextype posix-basic -regex '.*/rules/[^/]*.pdf' -delete

remove -delete if you want to perform a dry-run.

Answer 3

Easiest would be

find source -name '*.pdf' -path '*/rules/*.pdf' -exec rm '{}' +

Why the first -name? Because it'll be a bit faster this way. Also + instead of ; executes one rm with many arguments instead of many with one argument. So less process spawning. In bash you can get away without quoting {}.

Answer 4

Disclaimer: I am the current author of rawhide (rh) program that is used in this answer (see https://github.com/raforg/rawhide):

rh -UUU '"*/rules/*.pdf".path'

The '"*/rules/*.pdf".path' argument searches for pdf files inside/under directories named "rules".

The -UUU argument unlinks/deletes/removes the matching files.

Answer 5

You can use a bash script to do it (not the best way):

#!/bin/bash

# Don't screw us up with spaces!
IFS=$'\n'; set -f

DIRS=$(find . -type d -name "rules")

for i in $DIRS; do
  set +f
  rm $i/*.pdf
done
set +f

This iterates through the directories you find in your find command and removes the pdf's under each directory.

The line IFS=$'\n' is to cope with spaces in file names, and set -f is to cope with wildcard characters. Of course, this is assuming you don't have newlines in any of your filenames. If you do, the solution will become a lot more complicated.