“relative path potentially not safe” error with “find … -delete” on macOS
I'm trying to delete all files containing a certain text like this:
$ find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/* -exec grep -l "text to search for" '{}' ; -delete
/Users/build/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/06060826-3fb2-4d71-82c6-7b9d309b08d6.mobileprovision
find: -delete: /Users/build/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/06060826-3fb2-4d71-82c6-7b9d309b08d6.mobileprovision: relative path potentially not safe
However, as you can see, it's throwing a warning and then does not delete the file. How can I resolve this error?
This is on a Mac.
find osx
edited yesterday
Rui F Ribeiro
39.8k1479133
asked yesterday
Bart van den BurgBart van den Burg
14115
add a comment |
I'm trying to delete all files containing a certain text like this:
$ find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/* -exec grep -l "text to search for" '{}' ; -delete
/Users/build/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/06060826-3fb2-4d71-82c6-7b9d309b08d6.mobileprovision
find: -delete: /Users/build/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/06060826-3fb2-4d71-82c6-7b9d309b08d6.mobileprovision: relative path potentially not safe
However, as you can see, it's throwing a warning and then does not delete the file. How can I resolve this error?
This is on a Mac.
find osx
edited yesterday
Rui F Ribeiro
39.8k1479133
asked yesterday
Bart van den BurgBart van den Burg
14115
add a comment |
I'm trying to delete all files containing a certain text like this:
$ find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/* -exec grep -l "text to search for" '{}' ; -delete
/Users/build/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/06060826-3fb2-4d71-82c6-7b9d309b08d6.mobileprovision
find: -delete: /Users/build/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/06060826-3fb2-4d71-82c6-7b9d309b08d6.mobileprovision: relative path potentially not safe
However, as you can see, it's throwing a warning and then does not delete the file. How can I resolve this error?
This is on a Mac.
find osx
edited yesterday
Rui F Ribeiro
39.8k1479133
asked yesterday
Bart van den BurgBart van den Burg
14115
I'm trying to delete all files containing a certain text like this:
$ find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/* -exec grep -l "text to search for" '{}' ; -delete
/Users/build/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/06060826-3fb2-4d71-82c6-7b9d309b08d6.mobileprovision
find: -delete: /Users/build/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/06060826-3fb2-4d71-82c6-7b9d309b08d6.mobileprovision: relative path potentially not safe
However, as you can see, it's throwing a warning and then does not delete the file. How can I resolve this error?
This is on a Mac.
find osx
find osx
edited yesterday
Rui F Ribeiro
39.8k1479133
asked yesterday
Bart van den BurgBart van den Burg
14115
edited yesterday
Rui F Ribeiro
39.8k1479133
asked yesterday
Bart van den BurgBart van den Burg
14115
edited yesterday
Rui F Ribeiro
39.8k1479133
edited yesterday
Rui F Ribeiro
39.8k1479133
edited yesterday
Rui F Ribeiro
39.8k1479133
39.8k1479133
asked yesterday
Bart van den BurgBart van den Burg
14115
asked yesterday
Bart van den BurgBart van den Burg
14115
asked yesterday
Bart van den BurgBart van den Burg
14115
14115
add a comment |
add a comment |
3 Answers
3
active
oldest
votes
macOS find is based on an older version of FreeBSD find whose -delete would not remove the files that were given as argument.
When you do:
find dir/* ... -delete
Your shell is expanding that dir/* glob into a list of file paths (excluding the hidden ones, while find itself will not exclude the hidden files it finds in any of those dirs), so find receives something like:
find dir/dir1 dir/dir2 dir/file1 dir/file2... ... -delete
If dir/file1 matches macOS find's -delete will refuse to delete it. It will happily delete a dir/dir1/.somefile if it matches though.
That was changed in FreeBSD in 2013, but the change apparently didn't make it to macOS. Here, the work around is easy: use find dir (or find dir/ if you want to allow for dir to be a symlink to a directory and find to descend into it) instead of find dir/*. So, in your case:
find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/
-exec grep -l "text to search for" '{}' ; -delete
Or use the more efficient grep -l --null | xargs -0 approach.
answered yesterday
Stéphane ChazelasStéphane Chazelas
303k57570926
add a comment |
Try:
find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/ -type f -name "name to match" -delete
Edit - first code is not abswer for question, try this:
find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/ -type f -exec grep -l --null "pattern in file" {} + | xargs -0 rm
answered yesterday
MatejMatej
365
New contributor
Matej is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
1
This is searching for a filename pattern. OP wants to find files which contain a certain string/text.
– Michael D.
yesterday
@MichaelD. Oh, you are right, my bad.
– Matej
yesterday
You can't usexargsin general on the output offind, but especially here, it won't work as the paths of the files contain spaces (all whitespace, quotes backslashes are a problem withfind | xargs)
– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
1
No, I meant-exec grep -q pattern {} ; -print0 | xargs -0 rm. macOSgrepshould also support GNU's--nulloption so-exec grep -l --null pattern {} + | xargs -0 rmshould also work (and avoid running one grep per file).
– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
1
Yes. It's correct (there are some race condition issues linked to usingxargs rminstead of-delete, but probably not worth working around here as we're presumably not removing files from a directory under control of potentially malicious actors).
– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
|
show 4 more comments
This is searching for string err in all files in /var/log/ recursive.
I'm not sure if cut, uniq and xargs is available on Mac and this is not using find.
grep -r "err" /var/log/ | cut -d: -f1 | uniq | xargs echo
Replace echo with rm to delete the files.
answered yesterday
Michael D.Michael D.
1,577816
'find',cut,uniqandxargsare standard Unix utilities available on any Unix platform.
– Kusalananda
yesterday
add a comment |
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3 Answers
3
active
oldest
votes
3 Answers
3
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
macOS find is based on an older version of FreeBSD find whose -delete would not remove the files that were given as argument.
When you do:
find dir/* ... -delete
Your shell is expanding that dir/* glob into a list of file paths (excluding the hidden ones, while find itself will not exclude the hidden files it finds in any of those dirs), so find receives something like:
find dir/dir1 dir/dir2 dir/file1 dir/file2... ... -delete
If dir/file1 matches macOS find's -delete will refuse to delete it. It will happily delete a dir/dir1/.somefile if it matches though.
That was changed in FreeBSD in 2013, but the change apparently didn't make it to macOS. Here, the work around is easy: use find dir (or find dir/ if you want to allow for dir to be a symlink to a directory and find to descend into it) instead of find dir/*. So, in your case:
find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/
-exec grep -l "text to search for" '{}' ; -delete
Or use the more efficient grep -l --null | xargs -0 approach.
answered yesterday
Stéphane ChazelasStéphane Chazelas
303k57570926
add a comment |
macOS find is based on an older version of FreeBSD find whose -delete would not remove the files that were given as argument.
When you do:
find dir/* ... -delete
Your shell is expanding that dir/* glob into a list of file paths (excluding the hidden ones, while find itself will not exclude the hidden files it finds in any of those dirs), so find receives something like:
find dir/dir1 dir/dir2 dir/file1 dir/file2... ... -delete
If dir/file1 matches macOS find's -delete will refuse to delete it. It will happily delete a dir/dir1/.somefile if it matches though.
That was changed in FreeBSD in 2013, but the change apparently didn't make it to macOS. Here, the work around is easy: use find dir (or find dir/ if you want to allow for dir to be a symlink to a directory and find to descend into it) instead of find dir/*. So, in your case:
find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/
-exec grep -l "text to search for" '{}' ; -delete
Or use the more efficient grep -l --null | xargs -0 approach.
answered yesterday
Stéphane ChazelasStéphane Chazelas
303k57570926
add a comment |
macOS find is based on an older version of FreeBSD find whose -delete would not remove the files that were given as argument.
When you do:
find dir/* ... -delete
Your shell is expanding that dir/* glob into a list of file paths (excluding the hidden ones, while find itself will not exclude the hidden files it finds in any of those dirs), so find receives something like:
find dir/dir1 dir/dir2 dir/file1 dir/file2... ... -delete
If dir/file1 matches macOS find's -delete will refuse to delete it. It will happily delete a dir/dir1/.somefile if it matches though.
That was changed in FreeBSD in 2013, but the change apparently didn't make it to macOS. Here, the work around is easy: use find dir (or find dir/ if you want to allow for dir to be a symlink to a directory and find to descend into it) instead of find dir/*. So, in your case:
find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/
-exec grep -l "text to search for" '{}' ; -delete
Or use the more efficient grep -l --null | xargs -0 approach.
answered yesterday
Stéphane ChazelasStéphane Chazelas
303k57570926
macOS find is based on an older version of FreeBSD find whose -delete would not remove the files that were given as argument.
When you do:
find dir/* ... -delete
Your shell is expanding that dir/* glob into a list of file paths (excluding the hidden ones, while find itself will not exclude the hidden files it finds in any of those dirs), so find receives something like:
find dir/dir1 dir/dir2 dir/file1 dir/file2... ... -delete
If dir/file1 matches macOS find's -delete will refuse to delete it. It will happily delete a dir/dir1/.somefile if it matches though.
That was changed in FreeBSD in 2013, but the change apparently didn't make it to macOS. Here, the work around is easy: use find dir (or find dir/ if you want to allow for dir to be a symlink to a directory and find to descend into it) instead of find dir/*. So, in your case:
find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/
-exec grep -l "text to search for" '{}' ; -delete
Or use the more efficient grep -l --null | xargs -0 approach.
answered yesterday
Stéphane ChazelasStéphane Chazelas
303k57570926
edited yesterday
answered yesterday
Stéphane ChazelasStéphane Chazelas
303k57570926
answered yesterday
Stéphane ChazelasStéphane Chazelas
303k57570926
answered yesterday
Stéphane ChazelasStéphane Chazelas
303k57570926
303k57570926
add a comment |
add a comment |
Try:
find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/ -type f -name "name to match" -delete
Edit - first code is not abswer for question, try this:
find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/ -type f -exec grep -l --null "pattern in file" {} + | xargs -0 rm
answered yesterday
MatejMatej
365
New contributor
Matej is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
1
This is searching for a filename pattern. OP wants to find files which contain a certain string/text.
– Michael D.
yesterday
@MichaelD. Oh, you are right, my bad.
– Matej
yesterday
You can't usexargsin general on the output offind, but especially here, it won't work as the paths of the files contain spaces (all whitespace, quotes backslashes are a problem withfind | xargs)
– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
1
No, I meant-exec grep -q pattern {} ; -print0 | xargs -0 rm. macOSgrepshould also support GNU's--nulloption so-exec grep -l --null pattern {} + | xargs -0 rmshould also work (and avoid running one grep per file).
– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
1
Yes. It's correct (there are some race condition issues linked to usingxargs rminstead of-delete, but probably not worth working around here as we're presumably not removing files from a directory under control of potentially malicious actors).
– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
|
show 4 more comments
Try:
find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/ -type f -name "name to match" -delete
Edit - first code is not abswer for question, try this:
find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/ -type f -exec grep -l --null "pattern in file" {} + | xargs -0 rm
answered yesterday
MatejMatej
365
New contributor
Matej is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
1
This is searching for a filename pattern. OP wants to find files which contain a certain string/text.
– Michael D.
yesterday
@MichaelD. Oh, you are right, my bad.
– Matej
yesterday
You can't usexargsin general on the output offind, but especially here, it won't work as the paths of the files contain spaces (all whitespace, quotes backslashes are a problem withfind | xargs)
– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
1
No, I meant-exec grep -q pattern {} ; -print0 | xargs -0 rm. macOSgrepshould also support GNU's--nulloption so-exec grep -l --null pattern {} + | xargs -0 rmshould also work (and avoid running one grep per file).
– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
1
Yes. It's correct (there are some race condition issues linked to usingxargs rminstead of-delete, but probably not worth working around here as we're presumably not removing files from a directory under control of potentially malicious actors).
– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
|
show 4 more comments
Try:
find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/ -type f -name "name to match" -delete
Edit - first code is not abswer for question, try this:
find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/ -type f -exec grep -l --null "pattern in file" {} + | xargs -0 rm
answered yesterday
MatejMatej
365
New contributor
Matej is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
Try:
find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/ -type f -name "name to match" -delete
Edit - first code is not abswer for question, try this:
find ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/ -type f -exec grep -l --null "pattern in file" {} + | xargs -0 rm
answered yesterday
MatejMatej
365
New contributor
Matej is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
edited yesterday
answered yesterday
MatejMatej
365
New contributor
Matej is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
answered yesterday
MatejMatej
365
answered yesterday
MatejMatej
365
365
New contributor
Matej is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
New contributor
Matej is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
Matej is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
1
This is searching for a filename pattern. OP wants to find files which contain a certain string/text.
– Michael D.
yesterday
@MichaelD. Oh, you are right, my bad.
– Matej
yesterday
You can't usexargsin general on the output offind, but especially here, it won't work as the paths of the files contain spaces (all whitespace, quotes backslashes are a problem withfind | xargs)
– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
1
No, I meant-exec grep -q pattern {} ; -print0 | xargs -0 rm. macOSgrepshould also support GNU's--nulloption so-exec grep -l --null pattern {} + | xargs -0 rmshould also work (and avoid running one grep per file).
– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
1
Yes. It's correct (there are some race condition issues linked to usingxargs rminstead of-delete, but probably not worth working around here as we're presumably not removing files from a directory under control of potentially malicious actors).
– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
|
show 4 more comments
1
This is searching for a filename pattern. OP wants to find files which contain a certain string/text.
– Michael D.
yesterday
@MichaelD. Oh, you are right, my bad.
– Matej
yesterday
You can't usexargsin general on the output offind, but especially here, it won't work as the paths of the files contain spaces (all whitespace, quotes backslashes are a problem withfind | xargs)
– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
1
No, I meant-exec grep -q pattern {} ; -print0 | xargs -0 rm. macOSgrepshould also support GNU's--nulloption so-exec grep -l --null pattern {} + | xargs -0 rmshould also work (and avoid running one grep per file).
– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
1
Yes. It's correct (there are some race condition issues linked to usingxargs rminstead of-delete, but probably not worth working around here as we're presumably not removing files from a directory under control of potentially malicious actors).
– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
1
1
This is searching for a filename pattern. OP wants to find files which contain a certain string/text.
– Michael D.
yesterday
This is searching for a filename pattern. OP wants to find files which contain a certain string/text.
– Michael D.
yesterday
@MichaelD. Oh, you are right, my bad.
– Matej
yesterday
@MichaelD. Oh, you are right, my bad.
– Matej
yesterday
You can't use
xargs in general on the output of find, but especially here, it won't work as the paths of the files contain spaces (all whitespace, quotes backslashes are a problem with find | xargs)– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
You can't use
xargs in general on the output of find, but especially here, it won't work as the paths of the files contain spaces (all whitespace, quotes backslashes are a problem with find | xargs)– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
1
1
No, I meant
-exec grep -q pattern {} ; -print0 | xargs -0 rm. macOS grep should also support GNU's --null option so -exec grep -l --null pattern {} + | xargs -0 rm should also work (and avoid running one grep per file).– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
No, I meant
-exec grep -q pattern {} ; -print0 | xargs -0 rm. macOS grep should also support GNU's --null option so -exec grep -l --null pattern {} + | xargs -0 rm should also work (and avoid running one grep per file).– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
1
1
Yes. It's correct (there are some race condition issues linked to using
xargs rm instead of -delete, but probably not worth working around here as we're presumably not removing files from a directory under control of potentially malicious actors).– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
Yes. It's correct (there are some race condition issues linked to using
xargs rm instead of -delete, but probably not worth working around here as we're presumably not removing files from a directory under control of potentially malicious actors).– Stéphane Chazelas
yesterday
|
show 4 more comments
This is searching for string err in all files in /var/log/ recursive.
I'm not sure if cut, uniq and xargs is available on Mac and this is not using find.
grep -r "err" /var/log/ | cut -d: -f1 | uniq | xargs echo
Replace echo with rm to delete the files.
answered yesterday
Michael D.Michael D.
1,577816
'find',cut,uniqandxargsare standard Unix utilities available on any Unix platform.
– Kusalananda
yesterday
add a comment |
This is searching for string err in all files in /var/log/ recursive.
I'm not sure if cut, uniq and xargs is available on Mac and this is not using find.
grep -r "err" /var/log/ | cut -d: -f1 | uniq | xargs echo
Replace echo with rm to delete the files.
answered yesterday
Michael D.Michael D.
1,577816
'find',cut,uniqandxargsare standard Unix utilities available on any Unix platform.
– Kusalananda
yesterday
add a comment |
This is searching for string err in all files in /var/log/ recursive.
I'm not sure if cut, uniq and xargs is available on Mac and this is not using find.
grep -r "err" /var/log/ | cut -d: -f1 | uniq | xargs echo
Replace echo with rm to delete the files.
answered yesterday
Michael D.Michael D.
1,577816
This is searching for string err in all files in /var/log/ recursive.
I'm not sure if cut, uniq and xargs is available on Mac and this is not using find.
grep -r "err" /var/log/ | cut -d: -f1 | uniq | xargs echo
Replace echo with rm to delete the files.
answered yesterday
Michael D.Michael D.
1,577816
answered yesterday
Michael D.Michael D.
1,577816
answered yesterday
Michael D.Michael D.
1,577816
answered yesterday
Michael D.Michael D.
1,577816
1,577816
'find',cut,uniqandxargsare standard Unix utilities available on any Unix platform.
– Kusalananda
yesterday
add a comment |
'find',cut,uniqandxargsare standard Unix utilities available on any Unix platform.
– Kusalananda
yesterday
'find',
cut, uniq and xargs are standard Unix utilities available on any Unix platform.– Kusalananda
yesterday
'find',
cut, uniq and xargs are standard Unix utilities available on any Unix platform.– Kusalananda
yesterday
add a comment |
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