Scripting Syntax

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I'm new to shell scripting and would like to know what would be the best syntax to delete multiple directories in the same location? This is what I tried but it didn't work.

echo "clearing webtop and da cache."
su - $TOMCAT_USER -c rm -rf /usr/local/apache-tomcat-6.0.18/work/Catalina/localhost/"webtop da"

Please let me know how I can make this better or just work. Thx guys!

2

What is the criteria for multiple directories ?

-- all the directories under one directory
-- directories with a specific name pattern
-- directories with an unique timestamp
-- directories that are specific to a process or log
-- directories that are dummy created by some process and needs to be cleaned up..

3

Basically, Every time tomcat starts, It goes into that directory path and delete everything in webtop and da sub-directories and directory itself.

4

this should work,

su - $TOMCAT_USER -c rm -rf /usr/local/apache-tomcat-6.0.18/work/Catalina/localhost/webtop
su - $TOMCAT_USER -c rm -rf /usr/local/apache-tomcat-6.0.18/work/Catalina/localhost/da

unless if you have other thoughts of wrapping up 'rm' command with a custom logic to log the files and other information as per need into a file before actually deleting the directories / files

5

Is there a way of deleting them on a single line?

6

Did you mean this ?

su - $TOMCAT_USER -c rm -rf /usr/local/apache-tomcat-6.0.18/work/Catalina/localhost/webtop /usr/local/apache-tomcat-6.0.18/work/Catalina/localhost/da