I need to create a script that will remove a file if there is no extension. The file is generated with a random name, based on current date. The filename is passed in from a C program. I have tried this to search for a file extension, but will return the filename if there is no extension. However if there is an extension, the extension is returned and I get errors. ext=$(echo $to_filename | awk -F. '{ print $NF }') rm $ext

There's any number of ways of doing this; I'm assuming that the filename contains only alpha and numeric characters inaddition to special chars + and -. I delete any file that contains a . #!/bin/sh ls -1|while read file do if expr "$file" : '[a-zA-Z0-9\-\+]*\.' > /dev/null then rm $file fi done

You can use: ls -1 | nawk -F. '{ if (length($2) == 0) {print $1;}}' To find files that have no extensions. Put them in a file and loop them to get rid of them. Hope it helps. Thanks. The Network Department

BTW, you can simply do the following as well: rm `ls -1 | awk '!/\./'` Thanks.

Thanks, fellas. Just a couple of problems with these though. The first solution lists files with *.extension. The last two list directories along with files that do not have extensions

In that case you can simply replace ls -1 with -al: rm `ls -al | grep -v "^d" | awk '!/\./'` Thanks.

Ok, thanks a lot