Sometimes a bunch of unwanted files end up somewhere they don't belong. Maybe a cp gone wrong, or other command line typo creates a slew of oddly named files -- but you've got a number of files you'd really like to keep around mixed in with the bad. The following should be able to handle things:

find /tmp/disasterpiece -type f -print0 | grep -zxvf SAVE_THESE | xargs -0 -L1 rm -v # or if you want to remove links and other non-directories find /tmp/disasterpiece ! -type d -print0 | grep -zxvf SAVE_THESE | xargs -0 -L1 unlink

The find will list all the normal files (not directories, etc), or in the second command's case all non-directories. That's passed to grep which has been given the following options:

-z delimit lines based on nulls rather than the normal carriage returns -x only match if the pattern matches the whole line (e.g. foo doesn't match food) -v invert the selection (e.g. only print files that aren't in SAVE_THESE ) -f read patterns out of the specified file

Without the -v " SAVE_THESE " becomes " REMOVE_THESE " which if you're nervous may be a better way to go given that the above command pointed at the wrong location is going to find a lot of files that aren't in " SAVE_THESE ".

Making SAVE_THESE is easy using the find command and editing the output:

find /tmp/disasterpiece -type f > SAVE_THESE # do a little clean up vim SAVE_THESE

Finally, by giving xargs the -0 option in the original command it will break things up on the nulls so that issues with unusual files name can be avoided, the -L1 sends only one file at a time to rm or unlink .

And this is what is should look like:

mkdir /tmp/disasterpiece cd /tmp/disasterpiece # going to use STDIN redirection to create 0 length files with odd names > '!!!'; > "line feed"; > "s p a c e d"; > '"quoted"'; > -opt; > --longopt; > '*'; > '???'; > $(echo -e "be\\007ll"); > good_file; > not_bad

Now you have these files:

!!! , ??? , * , be?ll , good_file , line?feed , --longopt , not_bad , -opt , "quoted" and s p a c e d .

The question marks are due to unprintable characters, in this case a line feed (

) and bell ( \a ). To get a better idea of what these filenames actually are use ls -b , this lists the files this way:

!!! , ??? , * , be\all , good_file , line

feed , --longopt , not_bad , -opt , "quoted" and s\ p\ a\ c\ e\ d .

Time to create SAVE_THESE :

cd /tmp/ find /tmp/disasterpiece -type f > SAVE_THESE # perform a little housecleaning vim SAVE_THESE

If you want a dry-run put an echo in front of the rm command. Otherwise, let's clean things up!:

find /tmp/foo -type f -print0 | grep -zxvf SAVE_THESE | xargs -0 -L1 rm -v removed ‘/tmp/disasterpiece/!!!’ removed ‘/tmp/disasterpiece/be\\all’ removed ‘/tmp/disasterpiece/???’ removed ‘/tmp/disasterpiece/*’ removed ‘/tmp/disasterpiece/--longopt’ removed ‘/tmp/disasterpiece/-opt’ removed ‘/tmp/disasterpiece/"quoted"’ removed ‘/tmp/disasterpiece/s p a c e d’ removed ‘/tmp/disasterpiece/line\

feed’ # all clean cd /tmp/disasterpiece # let's see ls