Gradle: delete files older than a certain time

Question

I have a gradle task that deletes files matching a certain pattern in their names:

task deleteTempFiles(type: Delete) {
    tasks['clean'].dependsOn(it)
    delete fileTree(dir: '..', include: '**/tempfile*.tmp')
}

I would like to delete files older than, lets say, 2 hours or 24 hours. It could be 2 days for that matter. What is the easiest way to do it in gradle?

I imagine you should be able to use some variation of `filetree.matching() `and a closure that uses `file.getlastmodified` — RaGe, Jun 22 '16 at 21:12

RaGe · Answer 1 · 2016-06-22T23:21:28.767

1

task deleteTempFiles(type: Delete) {

    def cutoff = new Date().minus(1); //24 hrs ago

    delete fileTree (dir: '..')
        .matching{ include '**/tempfile*.tmp' }
        .findAll { 
            def filedate = new Date (it.lastModified())
            filedate.before(cutoff) 
        }
}

edited Jun 22 '16 at 23:21

answered Jun 22 '16 at 21:52

RaGe

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What about files older than 8 hours? – user3111525 Jun 23 '16 at 06:37
1

@user3111525, it's probably easy to do, isn't it? – Opal Jun 23 '16 at 06:54
Search is your friend. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21166927/incrementing-date-object-by-hours-minutes-in-groovy http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25046910/how-do-i-subtract-minutes-from-current-time – RaGe Jun 23 '16 at 15:39
@RaGe if you change your answer that includes a solution for 2 hours, 1 day and so on, i.e. a general way of doing it -- I will accept it as an answer. – user3111525 Jun 23 '16 at 20:36

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 14 '20 at 02:30

If you're looking for a solution that will delete all files/folders, not just "empty out" the folders, here's something I came up with that can be remixed for other use-cases.

/**
 * cleanCypressBuildCache will clean up build files that Cypress generates
 * before running tests. These are normally self-cleaned but if the build is interrupted
 * or dies during Cypress tests, then they'll remain forever. So we clean them up here.
 */
task cleanCypressBuildCache(type: Delete) {
    def cypressBuildFolder = System.getenv('APPDATA') + '/Cypress/cy/production/projects'
    def daysToKeepOldItems = 2

    description = 'Tidy up Cypress ' + cypressBuildFolder

    // Delete old folders / files
    def cutoff = new Date().minus(daysToKeepOldItems);
    def deleteList = []
    fileTree (dir: cypressBuildFolder).visit {
        def File file = it.file
        def shouldBeDeleted = new Date(file.lastModified()).before(cutoff)
        if (shouldBeDeleted) {
            deleteList << file
        }
    }
    // Not sure why, by `it.delete()` didn't work but `project.delete(it)` did.
    deleteList.each { project.delete(it) }
}

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 03 '22 at 12:27

0

in response to: // Not sure why, by it.delete() didn't work but project.delete(it) did. it's because it comes through as an AttributeBasedFileVisitDetails object.

what you'd need to do is use it.getFile().delete()

answered Mar 03 '22 at 12:27

one tech wizard

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Gradle: delete files older than a certain time

3 Answers3