Delete set of files using find command

Question

Background

Delete a set of files, scattered across different directories.

Problem

The following code does not work (the unescaped | causes issues);

for %i in (dir /s/b | find "lock") do echo del %i

Question

Without writing a batch file, how would you delete all files named "lock" (i.e., found using the find command) within the current directory and all subdirectories (including hidden directories)?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Your code needs a few touchups. The pipe operator needs to be escaped by the batch escape character ^ and when using quotations within the parentheses for a command, the usebackq option must be specified.

for /?

Batch Format:

for /f "usebackq" %%i in (`dir /s /b ^| find "lock"`) do echo %%i

Command Line Format:

for /f "usebackq" %i in (`dir /s /b ^| find "lock"`) do echo %i

Replace echo with del and any of its options when you want it to actually delete the files. Note the double percent signs are needed when used within a bat file, single when used directly on the command line.

Another method is to use the forfiles command. forfiles /?

forfiles /m *lock* /s /c "cmd /c echo @file"

Note, both of these methods will also delete any folders that contain the search term lock. Additional steps would be needed to be taken to prevent this.

Answer 2

For a given drive and/or path (looks in subfolders also):

del /f /s /q c:\windows\lock

Answer 3

I've dealt with this problem before and I used xargs and exec. Hopefully this link should be helpful. http://danielmiessler.com/blog/linux-xargs-vs-exec