一、场景描述
假如你要在linux下删除大量文件，比如100万、1000万，像/var/spool/clientmqueue/的mail邮件， 像/usr/local/nginx/proxy_temp的nginx缓存等，那么rm -rf *可能就不好使了。
二、解决方案
rsync提供了一些跟删除相关的参数
rsync --help | grep delete
--del an alias for --delete-during
--delete delete extraneous files from destination dirs
--delete-before receiver deletes before transfer, not during
--delete-during receiver deletes during the transfer
--delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
--delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not during
--delete-excluded also delete excluded files from destination dirs
--delete-missing-args delete missing source args from destination
--ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
--max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
其中--delete-before 接收者在传输之前进行删除操作
可以用来清空目录或文件，如下：
1、先建立一个空目录
mkdir /data/blank
2、用rsync删除目标目录
rsync --delete-before -d /data/blank/ /var/spool/clientmqueue/
这样目标目录很快就被清空了
又假如你有一些特别大的文件要删除，比如nohup.out这样的实时更新的文件，动辄都是几十个G上百G的，也以用rsync来清空大文件，而且效率比较高
1、创建空文件
touch /data/blank.txt
2、用rsync清空文件
rsync -a --delete-before -progress –stats /root/blank.txt /root/nohup.out
building file list …
1 file to consider
blank.txt
0 100% 0.00kB/s 0:00:00 (xfer#1, to-check=0/1)
Number of files: 1
Number of files transferred: 1
Total file size: 0 bytes
Total transferred file size: 0 bytes
Literal data: 0 bytes
Matched data: 0 bytes
File list size: 27
File list generation time: 0.006 seconds
File list transfer time: 0.000 seconds
Total bytes sent: 73
Total bytes received: 31
sent 73 bytes received 31 bytes 208.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0 speedup is 0.00
tips：
当SRC和DEST文件性质不一致时将会报错
当SRC和DEST性质都为文件【f】时，意思是清空文件内容而不是删除文件
当SRC和DEST性质都为目录【d】时，意思是删除该目录下的所有文件，使其变为空目录
最重要的是，它的处理速度相当快，处理几个G的文件也就是秒级的事
最核心的内容是：rsync实际上用的就是替换原理