Clearing the content of files by size

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0















Considering if I list files in a directory:



drwx--x--x 43 root wheel 4.0K Aug 18 12:52 ..
-rw------- 1 root root 268K Aug 18 04:31 build_locale_databases_log
-rw------- 1 root root 5.2M Aug 18 17:21 access_log
-rw------- 1 root root 85K Aug 18 17:14 cpbackup_transporter.log
-rw------- 1 root root 2.1M Aug 18 05:49 cphulkd.log
-rw------- 1 root root 3.2M Aug 18 17:19 error_log
-rw------- 1 root root 1.7M Aug 18 12:52 license_log


Here I want to clear the contents of the files which are greater than 2Mb. (i.e) to make the file size to zero bytes for the following files:



access_log
cphulkd.log
error_log









share|improve this question






























    0















    Considering if I list files in a directory:



    drwx--x--x 43 root wheel 4.0K Aug 18 12:52 ..
    -rw------- 1 root root 268K Aug 18 04:31 build_locale_databases_log
    -rw------- 1 root root 5.2M Aug 18 17:21 access_log
    -rw------- 1 root root 85K Aug 18 17:14 cpbackup_transporter.log
    -rw------- 1 root root 2.1M Aug 18 05:49 cphulkd.log
    -rw------- 1 root root 3.2M Aug 18 17:19 error_log
    -rw------- 1 root root 1.7M Aug 18 12:52 license_log


    Here I want to clear the contents of the files which are greater than 2Mb. (i.e) to make the file size to zero bytes for the following files:



    access_log
    cphulkd.log
    error_log









    share|improve this question


























      0












      0








      0








      Considering if I list files in a directory:



      drwx--x--x 43 root wheel 4.0K Aug 18 12:52 ..
      -rw------- 1 root root 268K Aug 18 04:31 build_locale_databases_log
      -rw------- 1 root root 5.2M Aug 18 17:21 access_log
      -rw------- 1 root root 85K Aug 18 17:14 cpbackup_transporter.log
      -rw------- 1 root root 2.1M Aug 18 05:49 cphulkd.log
      -rw------- 1 root root 3.2M Aug 18 17:19 error_log
      -rw------- 1 root root 1.7M Aug 18 12:52 license_log


      Here I want to clear the contents of the files which are greater than 2Mb. (i.e) to make the file size to zero bytes for the following files:



      access_log
      cphulkd.log
      error_log









      share|improve this question
















      Considering if I list files in a directory:



      drwx--x--x 43 root wheel 4.0K Aug 18 12:52 ..
      -rw------- 1 root root 268K Aug 18 04:31 build_locale_databases_log
      -rw------- 1 root root 5.2M Aug 18 17:21 access_log
      -rw------- 1 root root 85K Aug 18 17:14 cpbackup_transporter.log
      -rw------- 1 root root 2.1M Aug 18 05:49 cphulkd.log
      -rw------- 1 root root 3.2M Aug 18 17:19 error_log
      -rw------- 1 root root 1.7M Aug 18 12:52 license_log


      Here I want to clear the contents of the files which are greater than 2Mb. (i.e) to make the file size to zero bytes for the following files:



      access_log
      cphulkd.log
      error_log






      shell find






      share|improve this question















      share|improve this question













      share|improve this question




      share|improve this question








      edited Aug 18 '15 at 7:47









      cuonglm

      106k25211308




      106k25211308










      asked Aug 18 '15 at 7:34









      Leslin JeaLeslin Jea

      12




      12




















          5 Answers
          5






          active

          oldest

          votes


















          4














          I like to answer the direct question first, but do not run this before reading to the end of my answer. The command you are asking for (which may not be what you want) is:



          find /wherever -type f -name '*.log' -size +4096 -print 
          | xargs truncate --size 0


          Note that the +4096 means files with more than 4096 512-byte sectors. The problem is that if these are log files that a process is actively writing to, those processes will keep their position in the file. You'll recover the disk space (assuming your file system supports sparse files, which most do), but when you go to look at your logs there will be blocks of zeros at the beginning. So you really need to restart your daemon right after doing this, or better yet move the files out of the way and restart your daemons:



          cd /wherever
          find . -name '*.log' -maxdepth 1 -size +4096 -exec mv .old ;
          systemctl restart yourservice (or whatever you need to restart)
          rm -f *.old





          share|improve this answer

























          • "those processes will keep their position in the file" - are you sure? I've just tested, using exec 3>>foo; echo test test >&3; cat foo; : >foo; echo bam bam >&3; cat foo, and the same with > instead of >>; in both cases the write position was correctly reset to the new end of file.

            – Toby Speight
            Aug 19 '15 at 8:24






          • 1





            Depends if file opened with O_APPEND or not. If not, then truncating file does not affect seek pointers.

            – user3188445
            Aug 19 '15 at 8:27











          • On linux 4.1.5, if I run yes > mylogfile & sleep 1; :>mylogfile; kill %yes and look at mylogfile with hexdump, there are tons of 0-valued bytes at the beginning of the file.

            – user3188445
            Aug 19 '15 at 13:38











          • Ah, you're right (and I can repro that with my earlier approach if I write more than a single block - e.g. exec 3>mylogfile; timeout 0.1 yes >&3; ls -log mylogfile; :>mylogfile; ls -log mylogfile; echo >&3; ls -log mylogfile). And exec 3>>mylogfile behaves.

            – Toby Speight
            Aug 19 '15 at 13:58












          • find /data -type f -size +5G -exec truncate -s0 ; in general. Specifically to the OP question: find /data -type f -name '*log' -size +2M -exec truncate -s0 ;.

            – ILMostro_7
            Sep 4 '17 at 2:58



















          2














          You can do this by a find command:



          for i in $(find . -type f -size +2097152c);do cat /dev/null > $i;done


          The find command find . -type f -size +2097152c will find all files of size greater than




          2MB (2097152 bytes)




          The for loop will loop into the list of the files it got in the find command and will clean them out with a cat /dev/null



          ------Edit------



          As suggested by user3188445 You can try this way also



          for i in $(find . -type f -size +2097152c);do : > $i;done





          share|improve this answer




















          • 3





            This is more complicated than necessary. Note that the shell built-in : or the true command is better than cat /dev/null.

            – user3188445
            Aug 18 '15 at 8:15






          • 1





            Note that this won't work with file contain newline, and will empty all files in current directory if filename contain ` * `.

            – cuonglm
            Aug 18 '15 at 9:22











          • Also, if you are using IFS anyway why not truncate --size 0 $(find . -type f -size +2097152c)?

            – user3188445
            Aug 18 '15 at 13:09



















          0














          Posixly:



          find . ! -name . -prune -type f -size +2097152c -exec sh -c '
          for f do
          : > "$f"
          done
          ' sh +


          With GNU find or BSD find:



          find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -size +2M ...





          share|improve this answer























          • It returns the error "find: missing argument to `-exec'"

            – Leslin Jea
            Aug 18 '15 at 8:05












          • @LeslinJea: What command did you run exactly? Do you copy paste or typing by your self?

            – cuonglm
            Aug 18 '15 at 9:21


















          0














          while read -r line; do
          truncate -s 0 $line
          done < <(find / -type f -name '*.log' -size +2M)





          share|improve this answer






























            -2














            I came up with:



            find . -type f -size '+2M' -print | while read i
            do
            echo " " > $i
            done


            which works.






            share|improve this answer

























            • which doesn't work. It writes two bytes in the file. Use : >"$i" to truncate the file to 0 bytes. Using -print | while read only works for file names that don't contain special characters, you should use find -exec … or find … -print0 | xargs -0 instead.

              – Gilles
              Aug 18 '15 at 22:10











            • Its working well for me, it makes the file size to zero byte @Gilles

              – Leslin Jea
              Aug 21 '15 at 2:48











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            5 Answers
            5






            active

            oldest

            votes








            5 Answers
            5






            active

            oldest

            votes









            active

            oldest

            votes






            active

            oldest

            votes









            4














            I like to answer the direct question first, but do not run this before reading to the end of my answer. The command you are asking for (which may not be what you want) is:



            find /wherever -type f -name '*.log' -size +4096 -print 
            | xargs truncate --size 0


            Note that the +4096 means files with more than 4096 512-byte sectors. The problem is that if these are log files that a process is actively writing to, those processes will keep their position in the file. You'll recover the disk space (assuming your file system supports sparse files, which most do), but when you go to look at your logs there will be blocks of zeros at the beginning. So you really need to restart your daemon right after doing this, or better yet move the files out of the way and restart your daemons:



            cd /wherever
            find . -name '*.log' -maxdepth 1 -size +4096 -exec mv .old ;
            systemctl restart yourservice (or whatever you need to restart)
            rm -f *.old





            share|improve this answer

























            • "those processes will keep their position in the file" - are you sure? I've just tested, using exec 3>>foo; echo test test >&3; cat foo; : >foo; echo bam bam >&3; cat foo, and the same with > instead of >>; in both cases the write position was correctly reset to the new end of file.

              – Toby Speight
              Aug 19 '15 at 8:24






            • 1





              Depends if file opened with O_APPEND or not. If not, then truncating file does not affect seek pointers.

              – user3188445
              Aug 19 '15 at 8:27











            • On linux 4.1.5, if I run yes > mylogfile & sleep 1; :>mylogfile; kill %yes and look at mylogfile with hexdump, there are tons of 0-valued bytes at the beginning of the file.

              – user3188445
              Aug 19 '15 at 13:38











            • Ah, you're right (and I can repro that with my earlier approach if I write more than a single block - e.g. exec 3>mylogfile; timeout 0.1 yes >&3; ls -log mylogfile; :>mylogfile; ls -log mylogfile; echo >&3; ls -log mylogfile). And exec 3>>mylogfile behaves.

              – Toby Speight
              Aug 19 '15 at 13:58












            • find /data -type f -size +5G -exec truncate -s0 ; in general. Specifically to the OP question: find /data -type f -name '*log' -size +2M -exec truncate -s0 ;.

              – ILMostro_7
              Sep 4 '17 at 2:58
















            4














            I like to answer the direct question first, but do not run this before reading to the end of my answer. The command you are asking for (which may not be what you want) is:



            find /wherever -type f -name '*.log' -size +4096 -print 
            | xargs truncate --size 0


            Note that the +4096 means files with more than 4096 512-byte sectors. The problem is that if these are log files that a process is actively writing to, those processes will keep their position in the file. You'll recover the disk space (assuming your file system supports sparse files, which most do), but when you go to look at your logs there will be blocks of zeros at the beginning. So you really need to restart your daemon right after doing this, or better yet move the files out of the way and restart your daemons:



            cd /wherever
            find . -name '*.log' -maxdepth 1 -size +4096 -exec mv .old ;
            systemctl restart yourservice (or whatever you need to restart)
            rm -f *.old





            share|improve this answer

























            • "those processes will keep their position in the file" - are you sure? I've just tested, using exec 3>>foo; echo test test >&3; cat foo; : >foo; echo bam bam >&3; cat foo, and the same with > instead of >>; in both cases the write position was correctly reset to the new end of file.

              – Toby Speight
              Aug 19 '15 at 8:24






            • 1





              Depends if file opened with O_APPEND or not. If not, then truncating file does not affect seek pointers.

              – user3188445
              Aug 19 '15 at 8:27











            • On linux 4.1.5, if I run yes > mylogfile & sleep 1; :>mylogfile; kill %yes and look at mylogfile with hexdump, there are tons of 0-valued bytes at the beginning of the file.

              – user3188445
              Aug 19 '15 at 13:38











            • Ah, you're right (and I can repro that with my earlier approach if I write more than a single block - e.g. exec 3>mylogfile; timeout 0.1 yes >&3; ls -log mylogfile; :>mylogfile; ls -log mylogfile; echo >&3; ls -log mylogfile). And exec 3>>mylogfile behaves.

              – Toby Speight
              Aug 19 '15 at 13:58












            • find /data -type f -size +5G -exec truncate -s0 ; in general. Specifically to the OP question: find /data -type f -name '*log' -size +2M -exec truncate -s0 ;.

              – ILMostro_7
              Sep 4 '17 at 2:58














            4












            4








            4







            I like to answer the direct question first, but do not run this before reading to the end of my answer. The command you are asking for (which may not be what you want) is:



            find /wherever -type f -name '*.log' -size +4096 -print 
            | xargs truncate --size 0


            Note that the +4096 means files with more than 4096 512-byte sectors. The problem is that if these are log files that a process is actively writing to, those processes will keep their position in the file. You'll recover the disk space (assuming your file system supports sparse files, which most do), but when you go to look at your logs there will be blocks of zeros at the beginning. So you really need to restart your daemon right after doing this, or better yet move the files out of the way and restart your daemons:



            cd /wherever
            find . -name '*.log' -maxdepth 1 -size +4096 -exec mv .old ;
            systemctl restart yourservice (or whatever you need to restart)
            rm -f *.old





            share|improve this answer















            I like to answer the direct question first, but do not run this before reading to the end of my answer. The command you are asking for (which may not be what you want) is:



            find /wherever -type f -name '*.log' -size +4096 -print 
            | xargs truncate --size 0


            Note that the +4096 means files with more than 4096 512-byte sectors. The problem is that if these are log files that a process is actively writing to, those processes will keep their position in the file. You'll recover the disk space (assuming your file system supports sparse files, which most do), but when you go to look at your logs there will be blocks of zeros at the beginning. So you really need to restart your daemon right after doing this, or better yet move the files out of the way and restart your daemons:



            cd /wherever
            find . -name '*.log' -maxdepth 1 -size +4096 -exec mv .old ;
            systemctl restart yourservice (or whatever you need to restart)
            rm -f *.old






            share|improve this answer














            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer








            edited Aug 18 '15 at 8:20

























            answered Aug 18 '15 at 7:47









            user3188445user3188445

            2,7201028




            2,7201028












            • "those processes will keep their position in the file" - are you sure? I've just tested, using exec 3>>foo; echo test test >&3; cat foo; : >foo; echo bam bam >&3; cat foo, and the same with > instead of >>; in both cases the write position was correctly reset to the new end of file.

              – Toby Speight
              Aug 19 '15 at 8:24






            • 1





              Depends if file opened with O_APPEND or not. If not, then truncating file does not affect seek pointers.

              – user3188445
              Aug 19 '15 at 8:27











            • On linux 4.1.5, if I run yes > mylogfile & sleep 1; :>mylogfile; kill %yes and look at mylogfile with hexdump, there are tons of 0-valued bytes at the beginning of the file.

              – user3188445
              Aug 19 '15 at 13:38











            • Ah, you're right (and I can repro that with my earlier approach if I write more than a single block - e.g. exec 3>mylogfile; timeout 0.1 yes >&3; ls -log mylogfile; :>mylogfile; ls -log mylogfile; echo >&3; ls -log mylogfile). And exec 3>>mylogfile behaves.

              – Toby Speight
              Aug 19 '15 at 13:58












            • find /data -type f -size +5G -exec truncate -s0 ; in general. Specifically to the OP question: find /data -type f -name '*log' -size +2M -exec truncate -s0 ;.

              – ILMostro_7
              Sep 4 '17 at 2:58


















            • "those processes will keep their position in the file" - are you sure? I've just tested, using exec 3>>foo; echo test test >&3; cat foo; : >foo; echo bam bam >&3; cat foo, and the same with > instead of >>; in both cases the write position was correctly reset to the new end of file.

              – Toby Speight
              Aug 19 '15 at 8:24






            • 1





              Depends if file opened with O_APPEND or not. If not, then truncating file does not affect seek pointers.

              – user3188445
              Aug 19 '15 at 8:27











            • On linux 4.1.5, if I run yes > mylogfile & sleep 1; :>mylogfile; kill %yes and look at mylogfile with hexdump, there are tons of 0-valued bytes at the beginning of the file.

              – user3188445
              Aug 19 '15 at 13:38











            • Ah, you're right (and I can repro that with my earlier approach if I write more than a single block - e.g. exec 3>mylogfile; timeout 0.1 yes >&3; ls -log mylogfile; :>mylogfile; ls -log mylogfile; echo >&3; ls -log mylogfile). And exec 3>>mylogfile behaves.

              – Toby Speight
              Aug 19 '15 at 13:58












            • find /data -type f -size +5G -exec truncate -s0 ; in general. Specifically to the OP question: find /data -type f -name '*log' -size +2M -exec truncate -s0 ;.

              – ILMostro_7
              Sep 4 '17 at 2:58

















            "those processes will keep their position in the file" - are you sure? I've just tested, using exec 3>>foo; echo test test >&3; cat foo; : >foo; echo bam bam >&3; cat foo, and the same with > instead of >>; in both cases the write position was correctly reset to the new end of file.

            – Toby Speight
            Aug 19 '15 at 8:24





            "those processes will keep their position in the file" - are you sure? I've just tested, using exec 3>>foo; echo test test >&3; cat foo; : >foo; echo bam bam >&3; cat foo, and the same with > instead of >>; in both cases the write position was correctly reset to the new end of file.

            – Toby Speight
            Aug 19 '15 at 8:24




            1




            1





            Depends if file opened with O_APPEND or not. If not, then truncating file does not affect seek pointers.

            – user3188445
            Aug 19 '15 at 8:27





            Depends if file opened with O_APPEND or not. If not, then truncating file does not affect seek pointers.

            – user3188445
            Aug 19 '15 at 8:27













            On linux 4.1.5, if I run yes > mylogfile & sleep 1; :>mylogfile; kill %yes and look at mylogfile with hexdump, there are tons of 0-valued bytes at the beginning of the file.

            – user3188445
            Aug 19 '15 at 13:38





            On linux 4.1.5, if I run yes > mylogfile & sleep 1; :>mylogfile; kill %yes and look at mylogfile with hexdump, there are tons of 0-valued bytes at the beginning of the file.

            – user3188445
            Aug 19 '15 at 13:38













            Ah, you're right (and I can repro that with my earlier approach if I write more than a single block - e.g. exec 3>mylogfile; timeout 0.1 yes >&3; ls -log mylogfile; :>mylogfile; ls -log mylogfile; echo >&3; ls -log mylogfile). And exec 3>>mylogfile behaves.

            – Toby Speight
            Aug 19 '15 at 13:58






            Ah, you're right (and I can repro that with my earlier approach if I write more than a single block - e.g. exec 3>mylogfile; timeout 0.1 yes >&3; ls -log mylogfile; :>mylogfile; ls -log mylogfile; echo >&3; ls -log mylogfile). And exec 3>>mylogfile behaves.

            – Toby Speight
            Aug 19 '15 at 13:58














            find /data -type f -size +5G -exec truncate -s0 ; in general. Specifically to the OP question: find /data -type f -name '*log' -size +2M -exec truncate -s0 ;.

            – ILMostro_7
            Sep 4 '17 at 2:58






            find /data -type f -size +5G -exec truncate -s0 ; in general. Specifically to the OP question: find /data -type f -name '*log' -size +2M -exec truncate -s0 ;.

            – ILMostro_7
            Sep 4 '17 at 2:58














            2














            You can do this by a find command:



            for i in $(find . -type f -size +2097152c);do cat /dev/null > $i;done


            The find command find . -type f -size +2097152c will find all files of size greater than




            2MB (2097152 bytes)




            The for loop will loop into the list of the files it got in the find command and will clean them out with a cat /dev/null



            ------Edit------



            As suggested by user3188445 You can try this way also



            for i in $(find . -type f -size +2097152c);do : > $i;done





            share|improve this answer




















            • 3





              This is more complicated than necessary. Note that the shell built-in : or the true command is better than cat /dev/null.

              – user3188445
              Aug 18 '15 at 8:15






            • 1





              Note that this won't work with file contain newline, and will empty all files in current directory if filename contain ` * `.

              – cuonglm
              Aug 18 '15 at 9:22











            • Also, if you are using IFS anyway why not truncate --size 0 $(find . -type f -size +2097152c)?

              – user3188445
              Aug 18 '15 at 13:09
















            2














            You can do this by a find command:



            for i in $(find . -type f -size +2097152c);do cat /dev/null > $i;done


            The find command find . -type f -size +2097152c will find all files of size greater than




            2MB (2097152 bytes)




            The for loop will loop into the list of the files it got in the find command and will clean them out with a cat /dev/null



            ------Edit------



            As suggested by user3188445 You can try this way also



            for i in $(find . -type f -size +2097152c);do : > $i;done





            share|improve this answer




















            • 3





              This is more complicated than necessary. Note that the shell built-in : or the true command is better than cat /dev/null.

              – user3188445
              Aug 18 '15 at 8:15






            • 1





              Note that this won't work with file contain newline, and will empty all files in current directory if filename contain ` * `.

              – cuonglm
              Aug 18 '15 at 9:22











            • Also, if you are using IFS anyway why not truncate --size 0 $(find . -type f -size +2097152c)?

              – user3188445
              Aug 18 '15 at 13:09














            2












            2








            2







            You can do this by a find command:



            for i in $(find . -type f -size +2097152c);do cat /dev/null > $i;done


            The find command find . -type f -size +2097152c will find all files of size greater than




            2MB (2097152 bytes)




            The for loop will loop into the list of the files it got in the find command and will clean them out with a cat /dev/null



            ------Edit------



            As suggested by user3188445 You can try this way also



            for i in $(find . -type f -size +2097152c);do : > $i;done





            share|improve this answer















            You can do this by a find command:



            for i in $(find . -type f -size +2097152c);do cat /dev/null > $i;done


            The find command find . -type f -size +2097152c will find all files of size greater than




            2MB (2097152 bytes)




            The for loop will loop into the list of the files it got in the find command and will clean them out with a cat /dev/null



            ------Edit------



            As suggested by user3188445 You can try this way also



            for i in $(find . -type f -size +2097152c);do : > $i;done






            share|improve this answer














            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer








            edited Aug 18 '15 at 8:24

























            answered Aug 18 '15 at 8:09









            Kheshav SewnundunKheshav Sewnundun

            3481310




            3481310







            • 3





              This is more complicated than necessary. Note that the shell built-in : or the true command is better than cat /dev/null.

              – user3188445
              Aug 18 '15 at 8:15






            • 1





              Note that this won't work with file contain newline, and will empty all files in current directory if filename contain ` * `.

              – cuonglm
              Aug 18 '15 at 9:22











            • Also, if you are using IFS anyway why not truncate --size 0 $(find . -type f -size +2097152c)?

              – user3188445
              Aug 18 '15 at 13:09













            • 3





              This is more complicated than necessary. Note that the shell built-in : or the true command is better than cat /dev/null.

              – user3188445
              Aug 18 '15 at 8:15






            • 1





              Note that this won't work with file contain newline, and will empty all files in current directory if filename contain ` * `.

              – cuonglm
              Aug 18 '15 at 9:22











            • Also, if you are using IFS anyway why not truncate --size 0 $(find . -type f -size +2097152c)?

              – user3188445
              Aug 18 '15 at 13:09








            3




            3





            This is more complicated than necessary. Note that the shell built-in : or the true command is better than cat /dev/null.

            – user3188445
            Aug 18 '15 at 8:15





            This is more complicated than necessary. Note that the shell built-in : or the true command is better than cat /dev/null.

            – user3188445
            Aug 18 '15 at 8:15




            1




            1





            Note that this won't work with file contain newline, and will empty all files in current directory if filename contain ` * `.

            – cuonglm
            Aug 18 '15 at 9:22





            Note that this won't work with file contain newline, and will empty all files in current directory if filename contain ` * `.

            – cuonglm
            Aug 18 '15 at 9:22













            Also, if you are using IFS anyway why not truncate --size 0 $(find . -type f -size +2097152c)?

            – user3188445
            Aug 18 '15 at 13:09






            Also, if you are using IFS anyway why not truncate --size 0 $(find . -type f -size +2097152c)?

            – user3188445
            Aug 18 '15 at 13:09












            0














            Posixly:



            find . ! -name . -prune -type f -size +2097152c -exec sh -c '
            for f do
            : > "$f"
            done
            ' sh +


            With GNU find or BSD find:



            find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -size +2M ...





            share|improve this answer























            • It returns the error "find: missing argument to `-exec'"

              – Leslin Jea
              Aug 18 '15 at 8:05












            • @LeslinJea: What command did you run exactly? Do you copy paste or typing by your self?

              – cuonglm
              Aug 18 '15 at 9:21















            0














            Posixly:



            find . ! -name . -prune -type f -size +2097152c -exec sh -c '
            for f do
            : > "$f"
            done
            ' sh +


            With GNU find or BSD find:



            find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -size +2M ...





            share|improve this answer























            • It returns the error "find: missing argument to `-exec'"

              – Leslin Jea
              Aug 18 '15 at 8:05












            • @LeslinJea: What command did you run exactly? Do you copy paste or typing by your self?

              – cuonglm
              Aug 18 '15 at 9:21













            0












            0








            0







            Posixly:



            find . ! -name . -prune -type f -size +2097152c -exec sh -c '
            for f do
            : > "$f"
            done
            ' sh +


            With GNU find or BSD find:



            find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -size +2M ...





            share|improve this answer













            Posixly:



            find . ! -name . -prune -type f -size +2097152c -exec sh -c '
            for f do
            : > "$f"
            done
            ' sh +


            With GNU find or BSD find:



            find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -size +2M ...






            share|improve this answer












            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer










            answered Aug 18 '15 at 7:45









            cuonglmcuonglm

            106k25211308




            106k25211308












            • It returns the error "find: missing argument to `-exec'"

              – Leslin Jea
              Aug 18 '15 at 8:05












            • @LeslinJea: What command did you run exactly? Do you copy paste or typing by your self?

              – cuonglm
              Aug 18 '15 at 9:21

















            • It returns the error "find: missing argument to `-exec'"

              – Leslin Jea
              Aug 18 '15 at 8:05












            • @LeslinJea: What command did you run exactly? Do you copy paste or typing by your self?

              – cuonglm
              Aug 18 '15 at 9:21
















            It returns the error "find: missing argument to `-exec'"

            – Leslin Jea
            Aug 18 '15 at 8:05






            It returns the error "find: missing argument to `-exec'"

            – Leslin Jea
            Aug 18 '15 at 8:05














            @LeslinJea: What command did you run exactly? Do you copy paste or typing by your self?

            – cuonglm
            Aug 18 '15 at 9:21





            @LeslinJea: What command did you run exactly? Do you copy paste or typing by your self?

            – cuonglm
            Aug 18 '15 at 9:21











            0














            while read -r line; do
            truncate -s 0 $line
            done < <(find / -type f -name '*.log' -size +2M)





            share|improve this answer



























              0














              while read -r line; do
              truncate -s 0 $line
              done < <(find / -type f -name '*.log' -size +2M)





              share|improve this answer

























                0












                0








                0







                while read -r line; do
                truncate -s 0 $line
                done < <(find / -type f -name '*.log' -size +2M)





                share|improve this answer













                while read -r line; do
                truncate -s 0 $line
                done < <(find / -type f -name '*.log' -size +2M)






                share|improve this answer












                share|improve this answer



                share|improve this answer










                answered Mar 12 at 12:13









                warhansenwarhansen

                1195




                1195





















                    -2














                    I came up with:



                    find . -type f -size '+2M' -print | while read i
                    do
                    echo " " > $i
                    done


                    which works.






                    share|improve this answer

























                    • which doesn't work. It writes two bytes in the file. Use : >"$i" to truncate the file to 0 bytes. Using -print | while read only works for file names that don't contain special characters, you should use find -exec … or find … -print0 | xargs -0 instead.

                      – Gilles
                      Aug 18 '15 at 22:10











                    • Its working well for me, it makes the file size to zero byte @Gilles

                      – Leslin Jea
                      Aug 21 '15 at 2:48















                    -2














                    I came up with:



                    find . -type f -size '+2M' -print | while read i
                    do
                    echo " " > $i
                    done


                    which works.






                    share|improve this answer

























                    • which doesn't work. It writes two bytes in the file. Use : >"$i" to truncate the file to 0 bytes. Using -print | while read only works for file names that don't contain special characters, you should use find -exec … or find … -print0 | xargs -0 instead.

                      – Gilles
                      Aug 18 '15 at 22:10











                    • Its working well for me, it makes the file size to zero byte @Gilles

                      – Leslin Jea
                      Aug 21 '15 at 2:48













                    -2












                    -2








                    -2







                    I came up with:



                    find . -type f -size '+2M' -print | while read i
                    do
                    echo " " > $i
                    done


                    which works.






                    share|improve this answer















                    I came up with:



                    find . -type f -size '+2M' -print | while read i
                    do
                    echo " " > $i
                    done


                    which works.







                    share|improve this answer














                    share|improve this answer



                    share|improve this answer








                    edited Aug 18 '15 at 12:01









                    Anthon

                    61.6k17107171




                    61.6k17107171










                    answered Aug 18 '15 at 11:04









                    Leslin JeaLeslin Jea

                    12




                    12












                    • which doesn't work. It writes two bytes in the file. Use : >"$i" to truncate the file to 0 bytes. Using -print | while read only works for file names that don't contain special characters, you should use find -exec … or find … -print0 | xargs -0 instead.

                      – Gilles
                      Aug 18 '15 at 22:10











                    • Its working well for me, it makes the file size to zero byte @Gilles

                      – Leslin Jea
                      Aug 21 '15 at 2:48

















                    • which doesn't work. It writes two bytes in the file. Use : >"$i" to truncate the file to 0 bytes. Using -print | while read only works for file names that don't contain special characters, you should use find -exec … or find … -print0 | xargs -0 instead.

                      – Gilles
                      Aug 18 '15 at 22:10











                    • Its working well for me, it makes the file size to zero byte @Gilles

                      – Leslin Jea
                      Aug 21 '15 at 2:48
















                    which doesn't work. It writes two bytes in the file. Use : >"$i" to truncate the file to 0 bytes. Using -print | while read only works for file names that don't contain special characters, you should use find -exec … or find … -print0 | xargs -0 instead.

                    – Gilles
                    Aug 18 '15 at 22:10





                    which doesn't work. It writes two bytes in the file. Use : >"$i" to truncate the file to 0 bytes. Using -print | while read only works for file names that don't contain special characters, you should use find -exec … or find … -print0 | xargs -0 instead.

                    – Gilles
                    Aug 18 '15 at 22:10













                    Its working well for me, it makes the file size to zero byte @Gilles

                    – Leslin Jea
                    Aug 21 '15 at 2:48





                    Its working well for me, it makes the file size to zero byte @Gilles

                    – Leslin Jea
                    Aug 21 '15 at 2:48

















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