Yet another `rm` alias

safe-rm.md

SAFE-RM

It behaves identically asrm except that it won't delete files with important or .keep (customizable through SAFE_RM_IMPORTANCE_MARK ). The idea is to mark important files beforehand so they can always survive future disk cleanup.

What triggered me to create this is I accidentally removed some baseline models, which I spent lots of GPU hours to train and all my current training jobs depend on. To prevent future disasters, I come up with this solution. Hope you find it useful too.

Demo

> tree .  # before deletion
├── checkpoint
│   ├── baseline
│   │   ├── log.txt
│   │   └── model.pt
│   ├── finetuned
│   │   ├── log.txt
│   │   └── model.pt
│   ├── log.txt
│   └── note
│       ├── _record
│       │   ├── __init__.py
│       │   └── important_file
│       ├── log1.txt
│       └── log2.txt
├── main.cc
├── model.pt
└── note.keep

> rm -rf ./* # deletion
skip ./checkpoint/note/_record/important_file
skip ./checkpoint/baseline/model.pt
skip ./checkpoint/baseline/log.txt
skip ./note.keep

> tree . # after deletion, important files are preserved
├── checkpoint
│   ├── baseline
│   │   ├── log.txt
│   │   └── model.pt
│   └── note
│       └── _record
│           └── important_file
└── note.keep

safe-rm.sh

export SAFE_RM_IMPORTANCE_MARK=".keep baseline important" # separated by space

safe-rm() {
    mark=${SAFE_RM_IMPORTANCE_MARK:-".keep important"}
    mark_grep=${mark//\ /"\|"}  # for use with grep
    mark_regex=${mark//\ /"|"}  # for use with regex

    local flag     # store cli options like `-rf`
    local reach="" # flag variable to check if any files are provided
    for a in "$@"; do
        if [[ $a == -* ]]; then # store cli options
            flag="$flag $a"
        else
            reach="1"  # mark that at least one file is provided
            if [[ $a =~ $mark_regex ]]; then 
            # if [[ $a =~ "baseline" || $a =~ ".keep" ]]; then 
                # this file / folder has been marked as important, skip deletion
                echo "skip $a"
            else
                f=${a// /\\ } # escape for space charactor
                if [[ $flag =~ "r" && -d $f ]]; then 
                    # if $f is a folder and `-r` option presents, then we use `find` to go over all files inside $f
                    # and delete every file except those with importance mark
                    eval 'find $f -type file | grep -v "${mark_grep}" | xargs /bin/rm'

                    # then delete all empty folders inside $f
                    eval "find $f -type d -empty -print -delete"

                    # check if $f still contains file
                    if [ "$(find $f -type file)" ]; then
                        : # yes, then skip deleting $f
                        find $f -type file | xargs -I {} echo "skip {}" 
                    else
                        # no, $f is empty, then delete $f
                        eval "/bin/rm $flag $f"
                    fi
                else
                    # a file without importance mark, delete it
                    eval "/bin/rm $flag $f"
                fi
            fi
        fi
    done

    # if no files are provided, print help messages just like `rm`
    if [[ "$reach" == "" ]]; then
        eval "/bin/rm $flag"
    fi
}

ils() { # list all important files
  mark=${SAFE_RM_IMPORTANCE_MARK:-".keep important"}
  find $1 -type file | grep ${mark//\ /"\|"}
}

alias rm="safe-rm"