findrmfile-recovery

Waring on linux cmd: find . -delete -name "*.swp"

I try to delete all .swp file which vim created with the following command: find . -delete -name "*.swp" .

Then my whole project is deleted... Can anyone tell me why? and how to recover the project?

if you change the command to this: find . -name "*.swp" -delete it'll only delete the file it match

find . -delete -name "*.swp"equals to rm -rf * This issue is a warning message for programmer.

Solution

  • find predicates and actions form a boolean expression that is evaluated left to right with short-circuiting.

    Your expression:

    find . -delete -name "*.swp"

    is equivalent to the bash expression:

    rm "$file" && [[ $file == *.swp ]]

    This deletes the file, and if the deletion is successful it checks the name.

    Compare this to:

    # Like: find . -name "*.swp" -delete 
[[ $file == *.swp ]] && rm "$file"

    In this case, it checks the name. If the check passes, it deletes the file. This is what you intended.

    This behavior is super useful, because it allows you to write more advanced control flow and branching:

    find . -name '.git' -prune \
       -o \( -name '*.xz' -exec xz -d {} \; \
          -o -name '*.gz' -exec gzip -d {} \; \) \
            -printf 'Successfully extracted %f\n'

    This expression will skip any .git directory, run xz -d on .xz files only, gzip -d on .gz files only, and finally print a message for the files that were extracted.

    As for your files, they're deleted. It's often not possible to get them back. You'll have to restore them from your backup or, if you're desperate, try to follow a file un-deletion guide for your OS and filesystem (but again, it's often not possible).