Develop Reference

How to exclude a directory from deleting using ADB shell?

I am using adb shell rm -rf /sdcard/* to delete all contents from SDCARD right now. But I want to exclude a folder named Download from deleting. Can someone help me into this?

You need to use the name of the folder you want to delete. If it is inside sdcard directory, then run:
adb shell rm -rf /sdcard/Download

How does one execute a command on the terminal?

If you can't open the link, these are the commands that I need to execute to completely delete Android Studio from my laptop.
rm -Rf /Applications/Android\ Studio.app
rm -Rf /Applications/Android\ Studio.app
rm -Rf /Applications/Android\ Studio.app
When I type the command into command prompt, it says "'rm' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.". Any help is appreciated.

rm is a Unix utility for removing files. If you are not using a Unix based OS like Linux or OSX, then this instruction is probably not for you. To uninstall you can simply go to Control Panel and uninstall as you do other programs. The rm alternative for Windows Command prompt is called del. More information on del is found here.

A better Windows Command-Line equivalent of rm -rf is
rmdir /s /q
or, probably not as good, but interesting and informative
echo y | rmdir /s
This is discussed in the answer, here. There, I referenced the "interesting and informative" command ...
... used back in the day when commands did not have options to suppress confirmation messages. Simply ECHO the needed response and pipe the value into the command.

How to get list of currently working commands in Cygwin?

Currently working with the linphone-android integration. I have installed some packages during installation of Cygwin.
When I try some of the commands like ls, rm, cd, wget, tar and etc.. are working fine. But few commands like shell, clean are not working. It gives error command not found.
So, my question is,
Is there any way to get list of working commands for Cygwin?
Is there any way to install packages for these commands rather than installing them manually?

In my opinion the most elegant solution is to use the compgen command:
compgen -c lists all the available commands
compgen -a lists all the available aliases
You can also try a more brute approach:
Get all the paths from cygwin using echo $PATH and then for each folder execute ls -h <folder_name>

For installing a package the best way is to install first the equavalent of apt-get: apt-cyg from https://github.com/transcode-open/apt-cyg and put it in /usr/local/bin:
wget raw.github.com/transcode-open/apt-cyg/master/apt-cyg<br>
chmod +x apt-cyg<br>
mv apt-cyg /usr/local/bin<br>
You can also try running the setup executable used to install cygwin setup.exe -q -n -N -d -R c:\cygwin -s http://mirror_site_to_use -l c:\local_package_folder for a local package or setup.exe -q -P package_name to let the setup download the package

How do I execute a shell file?

I'm trying to download Whatsapp on my laptop. I am using Ubuntu desktop software. I've installed Android Emulator from http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r16-linux.tgz
I unzipped the file, opened the folder, Android-sdk-linux, opened Tools and now I'm supposed to execute the file Android, and I'm not sure how to do that. Can anyone give me any help?
Ok, so this is what I thought I was supposed to do:
shell#shell:~$ cd Desktop
shell#shell:~/Desktop$ ./android.sh
bash: ./android.sh: No such file or directory
but then that happens...

Make the file executable first with
chmod +x filename.sh
Then start the script with
./filename.sh
or
/full/path/to/filename.sh

sh filename.sh
OR
bash filename.sh

Use the following command to install the WhatsApp on Ubuntu:
wget https://www.thefanclub.co.za/sites/all/modules/pubdlcnt/pubdlcnt.php?file=https://www.thefanclub.co.za/sites/default/files/public/downloads/whatsapp-webapp_1.0_all.deb&nid=200 && sudo dpkg -i whatsapp-webapp_1.0_all.deb
Then enter the password and open WhatsApp using the application key.

by default permission for any shell script is "-rw-rw-r--" first we need to change the permissions using the "chmod command" then we can run the shell script in the same way in which we run the C executable code.
To debug the shell script we need to run the shell script with the "bash -x" option as follow : $ bash -x ./

How to delete folders in sdcard of file explorer?

I created several folders in the sdcard (Eclipse) by running an Android application in the emulator. Now I want to delete the folders which I have created on the sdcard.
I am able to delete files in the folders but I could not delete the folders in the sdcard.
How can I do this? Is there a way to delete folders?

Using adb command you can delete folders.
click Run - > CMD-> type adb shell --> cd sdcard -> rmdir {dirname}
Note : Make sure your dir should be empty.
For non-empty directory use.
click Run - > CMD-> type adb shell --> cd sdcard -> rm -r {dirname}

Well, answer from Brijesh Thakur is really helpful.
I just tried this and it worked fine for me to some extent. I would like to mention that if your directory contains any files then the rmdir command will not work. You will have to use rm -r command for that.
To make it more easy for beginners I am explaining the process as follows.
First you need to locate your adb folder, mine was at D:\Android SDK\platform-tools>
Now execute adb shell in a command prompt as:
D:\Android SDK\platform-tools>adb shell
A hash (#) symbol or dollar sign ($) will appear, then enter the following command:
# cd sdcard
Now you are in the sdcard of the device. If your folder is a sub folder then further locate its parent folder using the cd command. Finally, use the rm -r command to remove the folder recursively as follows. This will delete all files and directories in the folder.
# rm -r FolderName
Please note that if you want to remove a single file you can use the rm command only and then the file name (with extension probably). And you can also use rmdir command if the directory you trying to delete is empty.

Using adb shell with rm command you can delete(nonempty as well as empty) folders.
click Run -- > CMD--> type adb shell --> cd sdcard --> rm -r {dirname}

We can do it in a single command line as under:
adb shell rm -r sdcard/<dirname>

If you want to delete everything in your android file system, you need to get its storage name from adb!
# adb shell echo $EXTERNAL_STORAGE
It will give you the path where everything is stored!It will print the storage name in command line, for few devices it is /sdcard and for few, it is /storage/emulated/legacy etc
Now you want to delete everything in that, you need
# adb shell rm -r /sdcard/
that /sdcard/ is not same for all devices, it could be /storage/emulated/legacy/ for some devices!
warning-: It will delete every folder in your file manager except "android" folder
now if you want to delete a particular folder in that file manager
# adb shell rm -r /sdcard/FolderName

remount the sdcard with read and write permission:
adb shell mount -o remount,rw /
Go to adb shell:
adb shell
Delete file you want:
rm -r /sdcard/file_name
It will work most better.