Delete files older than n-days via T-SQL

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Delete files older than n-days via T-SQL

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tsduke

Posted Tuesday, August 05, 2008 1:03 PM

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What 'added' characters?

Post #547036

Gordon-265412

Posted Tuesday, August 05, 2008 1:22 PM

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The scriptbox appears to add characters (or uses a diff charset) for tabs.

What errors are you getting?

Edit:

If you are indeed only parsing it and not compiling it, it will generate errors as the temptables are not created if you only parse it (a very annoyying feature).

Your friendly High-Tech Janitor... :)

Post #547049

tsduke

Posted Tuesday, August 05, 2008 1:39 PM

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I get the same errors either way.

Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Line 2
Line 2: Incorrect syntax near ' '.
Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_Admin_Delete_Files_By_Date, Line 41
Line 41: Incorrect syntax near ' '.
Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_Admin_Delete_Files_By_Date, Line 59
Line 59: Incorrect syntax near ' '.
Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_Admin_Delete_Files_By_Date, Line 65
Line 65: Incorrect syntax near ' '.
Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_Admin_Delete_Files_By_Date, Line 73
Line 73: Incorrect syntax near ' '.
Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_Admin_Delete_Files_By_Date, Line 77
Line 77: Incorrect syntax near ' '.
Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_Admin_Delete_Files_By_Date, Line 80
Line 80: Incorrect syntax near ' '.
Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_Admin_Delete_Files_By_Date, Line 89
Line 89: Incorrect syntax near ' '.
Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_Admin_Delete_Files_By_Date, Line 101
Line 101: Incorrect syntax near ' '.
Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_Admin_Delete_Files_By_Date, Line 117
Line 117: Incorrect syntax near ' '.
Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_Admin_Delete_Files_By_Date, Line 126
Line 126: Incorrect syntax near ' '.
Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_Admin_Delete_Files_By_Date, Line 127
Line 127: Incorrect syntax near ' '.
Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_Admin_Delete_Files_By_Date, Line 133
Line 133: Incorrect syntax near ' '.

Post #547061

Gordon-265412

Posted Tuesday, August 05, 2008 1:45 PM

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As I suspected...the tabs are being converted in the scriptbox when submitted.

I'm not sure what to tell you except to do a search & replace on the tab character. It fails for me with the same errors and it's defenitly the tabs being incorrectly converted when scripts are submitted.

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Post #547068

DBA-640728

Posted Wednesday, February 09, 2011 2:51 PM

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ForFiles does'nt support UNC paths, that is why i am trying to use this code Smile

Post #1061580

opc.three

Posted Tuesday, September 13, 2011 6:57 AM

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Gordon-265412 (6/5/2008)

Forfiles is not included in every os by default. I needed to make sure that the code was supportable with no additional external software requirements (resource kit executables and such).

The Forfiles command would make life quite a bit simpler and it could be easily added to it and the FOR command removed...

To be fair xp_cmdshell is not enabled on SQL Server instances by default, and is barred from many environments for a long list of good reasons surrounding misuse and security.

PowerShell ships with SQL Server. It is disabled by default, mostly to force you choose how you want to allow it to run in your environment, from wide-open to unrestricted. Open a PowerShell prompt and run this command to set the level to a happy medium so you can get started:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Reference: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd347628.aspx

Once PowerShell is allowed here is a one-liner to do the same. Adjust the constants to suit...remove the -WhatIf to have it really do the deletion:

ls -Path "\\FooServer\BarShare\" -Filter "FooFile_*" |? {$_.LastWriteTime -lt (get-date).AddDays(-3)} | Remove-Item -WhatIf

To also look in all sub-folders:

ls -Path "E:\Backups\" -Filter "*.bak" -Recurse |? {$_.LastWriteTime -lt (get-date).AddDays(-3)} | Remove-Item -WhatIf

* You can also change .AddDays to .AddHours if needed

__________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Post #1174102

Mike Dougherty-384281

Posted Tuesday, September 13, 2011 7:15 AM

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While this code does the job I have to ask, "Why would you want your SQL Server deleting files?"

There isn't even any data-driven relationship to the files. We induct call recordings (.mp3) and store the files on disk for different duration based on the call result (sales, refusals, retry) - in that case it is the data that determines the files to delete. Rather than making thousands of cmdshell calls in a loop (or some other tedious operations) We have a [WSH] script that contacts a webservice to get a work-batch, it tracks the status of each operation in the batch and reports the results back to the database through another webservice call. There are two low-cost calls to the database and the heavy lifting on filesystem is done by a machine other than the SQL Server.

Well, environments vary. I guess we use whatever tools we have available. Maybe when we're hammering ever-harder on that screwdriver we should stop to consider if a chisel would be the right tool for the job.

Post #1174115

anandkreddy

Posted Tuesday, September 27, 2011 9:56 AM

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Please can any one send the t-sql script to delete the files from folder older than x days for sql server 2008 on windows 2008 r2

Post #1181917

micber

Posted Wednesday, May 30, 2012 6:54 AM

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all you have to do is change the version check from

IF @OSVersion = '5.2'

to IF @OSVersion >= '5.2'

umm yeah thats easy.

also I know this is an old thread but I am using this due to an issue I am having using the maint cleanup task not working. this is kinda slow if you call it repetavily and with many file.. I use a cursor to call it and it takes abt 20 min. Not really in a hurry though

DECLARE @databasename as varchar(200)
declare @strSQL as nvarchar (4000)

DECLARE Curse CURSOR local fast_forward
FOR
SELECT 
		  name 
FROM
		  master.dbo.sysdatabases 
WHERE
		   name  not in ('tempdb','AdventureWorks','AdventureWorksDW')
order by name desc
OPEN Curse

FETCH next FROM Curse INTO @databasename

WHILE @@fetch_status = 0
BEGIN

set @strSQL =  'EXEC DBA.dbo.usp_Admin_Delete_Files_By_Date @SourceDir = ''\\resnetapp01\prodsqlbackups$\NIGHTLY\RESMSSQL2008\' + @databasename + '\'', @SourceFile = ''*'', @DaysToKeep = 5'

EXEC dbo.sp_executesql @strSQL

fetch next from Curse into @databasename

END

close Curse
deallocate Curse

Michael B
Data Architect
MCT, MCITP(SQL DBA 2005/2008),MCTS, MCP,MCDBA

Post #1308318

Gordon-265412

Posted Wednesday, May 30, 2012 7:56 PM

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How well does it run for you without the cursor? How many files are you deleting when using the cursor per database?

I've not used this inside a cursor, I usually just strip the stored procedure extras and run it ad-hoc if I want to clean up something manually. But even then it has not run that long (20min) and I've got a slow network share drive...

Could the slowness possibly be coming from trying to delete a lot of files over the network?

I'm glad that it's working for you. Hopefully we/I can help figure out why it's slow on occasion...

Gordon

Your friendly High-Tech Janitor... :)

Post #1308724

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