OS/X (bash) - Command to remove non essential files not working

I am using mac with Sierra and the command to remove non essential files not working, here is the output for same -

Jeetendras-MacBook-Pro:quickstart Jeet$ xargs -a non-essential-files.txt rm -rf xargs: illegal option -- a usage: xargs [-0opt] [-E eofstr] [-I replstr [-R replacements]] [-J replstr] [-L number] [-n number [-x]] [-P maxprocs] [-s size] [utility [argument ...]]

Though there are workarounds for it, it would be good to have a fix here.

[trescenzi]

@leebenson I think 1. makes the most sense. Sounds like you’d have to fix the file regardless and it’s probably better to use a command that’s valid on more *nix flavors(including OS X).

Thanks for the quick response!

[trescenzi]

There are some extra nonreadable characters, at least by RHEL7, within the file.

rm -rf $(cat non-essential-files.txt) doesn’t work either.

A hexdump of the file shows what’s wrong:

(0)[11:06][tcrescenzi]~/web/frameworks-next/angular2-listbox/(master)λ hexdump non-essential-files.txt -C
00000000  2e 67 69 74 0d 0a 2e 67  69 74 69 67 6e 6f 72 65  |.git...gitignore|
00000010  0d 0a 2e 74 72 61 76 69  73 2e 79 6d 6c 0d 0a 2a  |...travis.yml..*|
00000020  2e 73 70 65 63 2a 2e 74  73 0d 0a 43 48 41 4e 47  |.spec*.ts..CHANG|
00000030  45 4c 4f 47 2e 6d 64 0d  0a 65 32 65 0d 0a 66 61  |ELOG.md..e2e..fa|
00000040  76 69 63 6f 6e 2e 69 63  6f 0d 0a 6b 61 72 6d 61  |vicon.ico..karma|
00000050  2e 63 6f 6e 66 2e 6a 73  0d 0a 6b 61 72 6d 61 2d  |.conf.js..karma-|
00000060  74 65 73 74 2d 73 68 69  6d 2e 6a 73 0d 0a 4c 49  |test-shim.js..LI|
00000070  43 45 4e 53 45 0d 0a 6e  6f 6e 2d 65 73 73 65 6e  |CENSE..non-essen|
00000080  74 69 61 6c 2d 66 69 6c  65 73 2e 74 78 74 0d 0a  |tial-files.txt..|
00000090  70 72 6f 74 72 61 63 74  6f 72 2e 63 6f 6e 66 69  |protractor.confi|
000000a0  67 2e 6a 73 0d 0a 52 45  41 44 4d 45 2e 6d 64 0d  |g.js..README.md.|
000000b0  0a                                                |.|
000000b1

The solution should be as simple as copying the file to your clipboard and then pasting it over the existing file. That worked for me.

Here’s also a list without the offending characters you can paste into a file that will work with xargs -a <file> rm -rf

.git
.gitignore
.travis.yml
*.spec*.ts
CHANGELOG.md
e2e
favicon.ico
karma.conf.js
karma-test-shim.js
LICENSE
non-essential-files.txt
protractor.config.js
README.md

For those uncertain if it’s working try xargs -a <file> ls and it’ll show you what will be touched by the command.