cron job for deleting files older than 1 week

[Matthew Flaschen]

Carsten Aulbert wrote:
> Gabriel Dragffy wrote:
> 
>> Could some one provide me with a sample script that I could run as a 
>> cron job and it would go through the streamripper folder deleting files 
>> older than 1 week (for example). Many thanks.
> 
>> gabe
> 
> 
> Again, use with care ;)
> 
> find /path -name "stream*.mp3" -mtime +6 | xargs -i rm -f {}
> 
> That should delete all files named "stream*.mp3" found in the directory
> hierarchie /path with modification date older than 6 days.
> 
> For mor info, please read the man page of find, xargs and rm and try the
> stuff first with 'echo' instead of rm to make sure you don't delete
> anything you don't want to delete.

Why do you use xargs?  find is designed to do the same thing with just
-delete:

find -name "stream*.mp3" -mtime +6 -delete

In general, you could just do:

find -name "stream*.mp3" -mtime +6 -execdir rm '{}' '+'

Also, the '+' means it uses the same command line for multiple files,
which is more efficient.

For testing:

find -name "stream*.mp3" -mtime +6 -print

No need to read two man pages. :)

Matt Flaschen