Ahh, yes, files with newlines.
You can use find -print0 | perl -0ne 'print($_);' ... using a null instead of newlines.
You're correct that -delete is easier in this case, but the perl one liner is handy (as a starting point) if you're doing something conditional, or changing file extensions in bulk, etc.
> > find . -name whatever\* -type f -print -delete
Or you can also do it all in Perl:
perl -E 'while (<whatever*>) { say; unlink }'
Re:Useful Perl one-liners (2013)
by EvilTerran on Tuesday November 29, 2016 @06:11PM
(#13067001)
> there must be a Perl golfer somewhere around here who does …
Hello!
perl -MFile::Find -e 'find sub{if(-f&&/^whatever/){say$File::Find::name;unlink}},"."'
perl -E 'sub x{say;for(<$_/*>){&x;unlink}};x for@ARGV' *
perl -E 'push@ARGV,<$_/*>for@ARGV;say,unlink for@ARGV' *
Re:Useful Perl one-liners (2013)
by EvilTerran on Wednesday November 30, 2016 @04:48AM
(#13069534)
Isn't that just "rm -rv *"? The original spec was to only delete files, not directories - and only those matching a given pattern, at that.
Also, I think yours would go into an infinite spin if it met a symlink loop (say, "ln -s . foo") - File::Find is hardened against that kinda shenanigans.
fair. not quite so pretty now...
perl -E 'for(@ARGV){say,unlink for<$_/whatever*>;push@ARGV,($_)x(-d^-l)for<$_/*>}' .
> find . -name whatever\* -type f -print -delete
... except this variation should be safe with filenames containing the '\n' character (which is perfectly legal on most UNIXes).