imranansari / rm-rotated-files

Remove rotated log files: files that are compressed, or numbered, or datestamped, e.g. syslog.1, history.gz, etc.

Remove rotated files

This script deletes log files that are created by various kinds of log file rotations.

Contents:

• Introduction
• Which files?
• Related
• Compatibility notes
• Tracking

Introduction

Syntax:

$ rm-rotated-files <dir>

Example:

$ rm-rotated-files /var/log

Which files?

Compressed files:

• Files with extensions that are known to be compressed or archived.

• Examples: .bz2, .bzip, .gz, .tar, .tgz, .zip, .7zip

Old files:

• Files with extensions that are typically for old files.

• Examples: .old, .bak, .tmp

Numbered files:

• Files with names that end in a separator then number:

• Examples: foo.1, foo-2, foo_3, etc.

Datestamped files:

• Files with names that end in a separator then ISO date.

• Examples: foo-2017-12-31, foo_2017_12_31, etc.

Related

These scripts are for related purposes:

• rm-compressed-files

• rm-dated-files

• rm-numbered-files

• rm-rotated-files

Compatibility notes

We prefer to be more compatible rather than system-specific.

• To delete files, we prefer -exec rm vs. -delete. The former is more compatible, the latter is faster.

• To regex match, we prefer patterns to be basic vs. extended. The former is more compatible, the latter is more modern.

• We prefer POSIX code vs. shell-specific code.

• We prefer the code to be more DAMP than DRY. For example, the code has separate name matching for .bz and .bz2, even though we could combine these.

Tracking

• Command: rm-rotated-files
• Website: http://sixarm.com/rm-rotated-files
• Cloning: https://github.com/sixarm/rm-rotated-files
• Version: 4.0.0
• Created: 2013-12-09
• Updated: 2019-01-21
• License: GPL
• Contact: Joel Parker Henderson ([email protected])
• Tracker: 0f5f883770a0a2e85c7ec9a0c8296402