Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!cbnewsj!ecl
From: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Deleting directories
Message-ID: <1990Jul10.130548.10216@cbnewsj.att.com>
Date: 10 Jul 90 13:05:48 GMT
References: <37481@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 20

In article <37481@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> ashish@janus.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Ashish Mukharji) writes:
> Recently, I had to remove all of a user's files older than a 
> certain date.  That was easily accomplished with find(1), but deleting the 
> resulting (empty) directory structure presents a greater problem.  The user's 
> home directory is the root of a large, mostly empty directory tree.  I want
> to delete all directories that do not contain any regular files - find starts
> with . and works its way down (inorder).  What I need is a way to do a 
> postorder traversal of the directory structure.  Is there a simple way, short 
> of writing a C routine?

I should say RTFM, but:
	find top-directory-name -depth -type d -exec rmdir {} \;

The -depth goes postorder.
The rmdir will fail on any non-empty directories.

Evelyn C. Leeper  |  +1 201-957-2070  |  att!mtgzy!ecl or  ecl@mtgzy.att.com
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. 
                                                            -Edmund Burke