Removing files interactively with find and xargs

Question

I'm trying to pipe some files from the find command to the interactive remove command, so that I can double check the files I'm removing, but I've run into some trouble.

find -name '#*#' -print0 | xargs -0 rm -i

I thought the above would work, but instead I just get a string of "rm: remove regular file ./some/path/#someFile.js#? rm: remove regular file ./another/path/#anotherFile#?..."

Can someone explain to me what's exactly is happening, and what I can do to get my desired results? Thanks.

Answer 1

You can do this by using exec option with find. Use the command

find . -name '#*#' -exec rm -i {} \;

xargs will not work (unless you use options such as -o or -p) because it uses stdin to build commands. Since stdin is already in use, you cannot input the response for query with rm.

Answer 2

you can use this simple command to solve your problem.

find . -name '#*#' -delete