rm command to be use with xargs to exclude some folders having space in the name

Question

In one directory I have around 50 files and folders that includes some folders with space in their names. I want to delete some folders using ls, grep and xargs command but not able to delete the folders with space in their names and shows exception. Can anyone help? Using a Solaris OS. I tried below for deleting everything except $files

ls | grep -v "$files" | xargs rm

and when I tried below command it deletes everything including $files which I dont want.

ls | grep -v "$files" | xargs rm --*\ *

Answer 1

Without using non-standard extensions, and assuming your shell implements while read ..., this also should work:

ls | grep -v "$files" | while read filename; do
    rm "$filename"
done

The quotes around $filename are critical. Without the quotes, the argument will be split on any spaces that may be in the name.

Note also that won't delete a directory - as others have mentioned, you need rm -r - or rmdir - to do that. But rm -r will delete a directory and everything in it. rmdir by default won't delete a non-empty directory.

You probably should run a test first with something like

ls | grep -v "$files" | while read filename; do
    ls -ld "$filename"
done

Use the -ld options to ls to be sure you're getting the correct file, and also to not list directory contents if the file name passed happens to be a directory.