Remove all links (aliases) in a directory (tree)

Question

I have a directory of directories which may or may not contain files, other directories or links.

I want to delete all the links. Anyone know of a bash script that would let me do this quickly?

Honest inquiry; why was my question down voted? Asking to learn what to keep in mind when writing my next one. Downvote without comment is very misleading. — Kevin Chavez, Oct 10 '17 at 19:53

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 09 '17 at 20:30

0

A google search to find all links in a directory leads to:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type l

You can combine this with rm:

rm `find . -maxdepth 1 -type l`

answered Oct 09 '17 at 20:30

sauerburger

1

Why would someone downvote this? The maxdepth is cautionary, but easy to remove if the OP doesn't want it, and I *SURE* hope he reads the manpage before arbitrarily executing code he doesn't understand... I do get that the OP asked for recursive deletes, but a downvote on this seems like someone was maybe just looking for a badge? – Paul Hodges Oct 10 '17 at 13:29

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 09 '17 at 20:42

0

c.f. this

If you're brave, try this -

find $dirPath -type l | xargs rm -f

answered Oct 09 '17 at 20:42

Paul Hodges

2

You should be careful with this command, it deletes links recursively, i.e. all links in any sub directory (and sub-sub-...-directories). – sauerburger Oct 09 '17 at 21:11
Yes, it's quick but very heavy-handed. I would most likely just write the list to a file and eyeball it first, then edit if needed, and when satisfied, feed that list to the xargs, or some other script. ...but it matches the request. – Paul Hodges Oct 10 '17 at 13:26

2 Answers2