Copyright
Christian Engström, 2005
This
work is licensed under a Creative
Commons License.
Deletes one or more files.
> dele ***\*.html.* -before=yesterday Deleted: e:\work\about.html Deleted: e:\work\index.html Deleted: e:\work\doc\00readme.html.~1~ Deleted: e:\work\doc\00readme.html.~2~ Deleted: e:\work\doc\00readme.html Deleted: e:\work\doc\old\index.html 26 kb deleted, 6 files
> dele '***/*.html.*' -before=yesterday Deleted: \home\chris\work\about.html Deleted: \home\chris\work\index.html Deleted: \home\chris\work\doc\00readme.html.~1~ Deleted: \home\chris\work\doc\00readme.html.~2~ Deleted: \home\chris\work\doc\00readme.html Deleted: \home\chris\work\doc\old\index.html 26 kb deleted, 6 files
> dele '*.tmp.*'
The dele command takes one or more filenames, with or without
wildcards, as parameter. dele accepts the same wildcards
as the d directory command.
See File Specifications.
Filenames that contain wildcard characters must be placed within single quotes under Linux.
With dele you must always specify an explicitly which
version(s) you want to delete. The version
number can be either of the following:
| .* | Delete all versions of all file(s). This would
be the most common case. |
| . |
Delete only the highest version of the
file(s). This will normally be the version that does not have any
version number at all, but it could also be the file with the highest
explicit version number, if no unversioned file exists. Deleting the highest version of a file is useful when you want to revert to the previous version of it (provided that version still exists and has not been purged away). |
| .3 |
A positive version number signifying a particular version of the file. The tildes that appear on either side of the number in the filename on disk can be left out when typing the file specification. |
| .-1 |
A negative version number signifying the relative version of the file. .-1
means the second highest version of the file, etc. |
Unlike the d directory command,
dele does not add any defaults to the input file
specification, so you must specify all wildcards explicitly.
Together with the fact that an explicit version number is required, dele
is less generous with the syntax than any of the other basic file
handling commands. The intention is of course to make it more difficult
to accidentally delete the wrong files.
| *.*.* | All versions of all files in the directory. |
| *.*. |
The highest version of all files in the directory, but not the previous versions. The trailing dot it required. |
| *. |
The highest version of all files in the directory that have
an empty extension. |
| *..* *.~*~ |
All versions of all files in the directory that
have
an empty extension.
If you use the syntax with only one dot, the tildes are required, or you will get the error message "Version number must be explicit of wildcard". |
Directory files can be deleted just like any other files, provided
they are empty.
Just like for regular files, the dele command requires that
the version number field is specified explicitly in the command line.
Since directory files normally have neither extension nor version
number, this means that you should add a dot after the directory
name if you want to delete it with the dele command.
> dele mydir. Deleted: e:\work\mydir 0 byte deleted, 1 file
> dele -hidden 'mydir/***/*.*.*'The -hidden option is required to make sure any hidden files in the directory tree are deleted as well.
The dele command will delete the files in "bottom up" order. This ensures that subdirectories that become empty as a result of the command, can themselves be deleted by it. (VMS did not do it this way, which meant that you had to repeat the same command several times in order to delete an entire directory tree.)
When the directory is empty, you can delete the directory itself with the command
> dele mydir.
Alternatively, you can combine the two into a single delete command:
> dele -hidden mydir. 'mydir/***/*.*.*'This will first delete the contents of mydir, and then mydir itself.
The command
> dele -hidden ***\*.*.*
will delete all files in the current directory and in all
subdirectories, including the subdirectories themselves.
The Windows command del is similar to dele, and it
can be easy to mistype one for the other. This presents a potential
hazard, as the two commands accept a similar syntax, but there are
semantic differences as to which files should be deleted in some cases.
In practice, the situation is not quite as bad as it sounds, however.
The Glindra dele command demands that each file
specification should contain a second dot followed by something that
can be interpreted as an explicit version number. The Windows del
command has no such requirement, so most command lines that you would
want to give to the Windows command del will not be accepted by
dele because the version number is missing, and vice versa.
The only practical danger that I am aware of is the following:
|
dele a.xyz.~*~
|
The Glindra command deletes all versions of the file, including the last one. |
| del a.xyz.~*~ | The Windows built-in command deletes all versions except the current one of the file. |
If you were using the Windows del command to remove all
obsolete versions of a file, but leave the most current one in place,
the latter command would unfortunately be the normal way to do this.
This means that if you have developed the habit of using del in
this manner, and accidentally mistype the command so that you type dele
instead of del, you would delete both the old versions and the
most current version of the file.
For this reason, it is strongly recommended that you avoid using the
Windows command del to delete obsolete file versions.
To delete all versions except the last one, you should
use the Glindra command pu (purge)
instead.
| Suppress the "Are you sure?" confirmation question for directory specifications that start with \***\. The option name cannot be abbreviated. |
> dele \***\old\junk\rubbish.tmp.-1 -sure
If you intend to delete all files and subdirectories in the current directory with the command
> dele ***\*.*.*
but accidentally insert an extra \ at the
beginning, so that the command becomes
> dele \***\*.*.*
you would wipe out the entire directory structure and all the files
in it.
To safeguard against this potential mistake, the dele and pu commands will demand confirmation if
you give a file specification that begins with the wildcard \***\.
They will do this both if the \***\ wildcard is
just the beginning of a more specific directory path, and if it is the
entire directory specification.
> dele \***\*.*.*
Delete files across the entire directory structure. Are you sure? N
No files deleted
> dele \***\old\junk\rubbish.tmp.-1
Delete files across the entire directory structure. Are you sure? Y
Deleted: e:\alice\wombat\old\junk\rubbish.tmp.~2~
Deleted: e:\old\junk\rubbish.tmp.~9~
1.4 Gb deleted, 2 files
If you are sure that you do indeed want to use the directory
wildcard starting from the top directory, and you do not want the
command to ask for confirmation, you can suppress the question by
adding the option -sure to the command line.
The option cannot be abbreviated and must be spelled out in full.
> dele \***\old\junk\rubbish.tmp.-1 -sure
Deleted: e:\alice\wombat\old\junk\rubbish.tmp.~2~
Deleted: e:\old\junk\rubbish.tmp.~9~
1.4 Gb deleted, 2 files
> dele ***\*.*.* -exclude=(.doc .txt) -before=today -min_size=2mb -hidden
> dele '***/*.*.*' -exclude=\(.doc .txt\) -before=today -min_size=2mb -hidden
| -since [= datetime] | Select files that were created on or after a certain date/time. |
| -before [= datetime] | Select file that were created before a certain date/time. |
| -min_size [= size] | Specify a minimum file size in bytes, Mb, or some other unit |
| -max_size [= size] | Specify a maximum file size . |
|
-directories
[= only/also/not]
|
List directory files (only/also/not) . Default is also. |
| -hidden [= only/also/not] | List hidden files (only/also/not). Default is not. |
| -nodefault | Has no effect, since dele does not add any defaults to
the file specification anyway. |
| -exclude [= filespec] | Exclude files that match the file specification given as option value. If the option value is enclosed in parenthesis, it can contain a full file specification, including recursive file selection options. |
These options control which files are selected. See File Selection Options for more information.
> dele *.log.* -nowarning
> dele '*.log.*' -nowarning
| Print out a brief help text with a summary of each of the different options, and exit from the program. | |
| -version | Show the name and version number of the program, and exit.
This option must be written out in full, and cannot be abbreviated. |
| -verbose
-v -statistics -noverbose |
Specify the amount of informational messages. |
| -warning -nowarning -noerror |
Specify the level of error reporting. |
See Help and Information Options.
Copyright
Christian Engström, 2005
This
work is licensed under a Creative
Commons License.