listing and deleting directories

how to list and delete more than one directories in one single command??????

Code:

$ ls -d */ | xargs rm -r

the above command will delete only the directories in the present directory without deleting files.

hey......thanks

what does xagrs stands for. I know rm is for remove command what does - r do

xargs is used to pass more than one arguments to a command. In this example, the output of ls command is passed as argument to rm. Each file or directory in the output of ls command will be passed as arguments to rm individually.

Hey thanks, I understood the xargs command what about the -r command.

-r or -R is used to recursively remove the files or directories.

xargs is to pass more than one arguements..
does it mean that if there is only one directory being passed then xargs is not required??
can you give some more examples!

actually both -r and -R recursively removes a directory but wats the difference!!!

i dont think so. Even if the output of ls is a single value, it wont work. if u r using a command('ls') which produce list of values, u have to use xargs.

by mistake i have deleted all directories ... how to recover those.?...........

I think it is not possible to recover deleted files if u r in multiuser mode. i recommend adding more immunity to ur files which can prevent accident deletion of files.

for adding immunity

Code:

chattr +i file

for removing immunity

Code:

chattr -i file

anyways... these commands will work only for root user.