Fixing the Trash Can: Automated Deletion?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 28th Apr 2008 21:38 UTC, submitted by kiddo
Graphics, User Interfaces The trash can metaphor in computing is as old as the desktop metaphor itself. It was first introduced with the Apple Lisa user interface, and found its way to the Macintosh. Apple patented the whole idea, and sued anyone who tried to use the same name, resulting in other user interfaces implementing the exact same principle but just named differently. Despite its old age, and the fact it barely changed over the decades, many people have issues with the traditional concept.
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Not hard to fix
by unoengborg on Wed 30th Apr 2008 02:35 UTC
unoengborg
Member since:
2005-07-06

First use incron to watch the .Trach folder and use touch on each file that is moved to .Trash

Then just run a cron script at regular intervalls that deltes old mail.

E.g
cd ~/.Trash;find . -amin +xxxx -exec rm -rf \{\} \;

where xxxx is how long time ago a file was last accessed.

The problem with this is that the files are touched and that their date information gets lost.

If you feel that this is a problem, you could let incron create a soft link preferably starting with a dot to make it invisible, and then modify the find script so that it removes both the link and the linked file when it is time. Don't forget to let incron handle deletion of the links in case a trached file is removed from the trash.

Reply Score: 2

RE: Not hard to fix
by Invincible Cow on Wed 30th Apr 2008 20:13 in reply to "Not hard to fix"
Invincible Cow Member since:
2006-06-24

Ah! The UNIX solution. Which essentially means I'll lose my file dates (which is not a problem, but let's make it one ;) ) OR I can't trash both net_programming.txt and .net_programming.txt without errors.

As is standard for UNIX solutions, it does not even solve the original problem, as rm still can't delete the files that were owned by root, and I can't touch them if they're owned by root either.

And of course there's "simple" ways around it, but come on, it's 2006!

No, it's actually 2008. I don't want to write a shell script to get my trash can working!

Edited 2008-04-30 20:15 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 1