how to automatically delete created file in linux with inotify?
I am trying to delete a created file with inotify but it doesn't work:
inotifywait -r --format '%w%f' -e create /test && rm $FILE
when i create a file in /test I get this:
/test/somefile.txt rm: missing operand Try `rm --help' for more information.
so it seems that the $FILE variable is not passed to the rm command... how can I do this correctly? Thanks.
Answers
When launching your inotifywait once (without the -m flag), you can easily use xargs :
inotifywait -r --format '%w%f' -e create /test -q | xargs /bin/rm
that will wait for a file creation in /test, give the filename to xargs and give this arg to /bin/rm to delete the file, then it will exit.
If you need to continuously watch your directory (with the -m param of inotifywait), create a script file like this :
inotifywait -m -r --format '%w%f' -e create /test | while read FILE
do
/bin/rm $FILE
done
And then, every newly file created in you /test directory will be removed.