How do I truncate or clear a file that's in use?

Question

We have a Windows 2000 box running Apache that's running out of disk space. We can't shut down or restart Apache to clear the lock (I'm a UNIX guy, not sure what the equivelant term for Windows is) on the file because it takes too long to restart.

Trying something like

ren access_log access_log.bak

or

del access_log

results in

The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.

How do we clear down the file without taking down Apache?

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 07 '13 at 16:51

Don't think this will work for Windows 2000 (quick google says PowerShell for Win 2000 is not supported) but I found this forum post that works for me on Win 7, figured I'd share it here for others looking to do the same:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1538826

Basically, get yourself a copy of Windows PowerShell and run this command:

while ($true) { gci c:\some\dir -recurse -Include mylogfile.log | ? { $_.length -gt 100mb } | Clear-Content; sleep 15 }

This will truncate the log file every time it grows above 100MB for as long as you let the command run.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 21 '11 at 13:22

1

Apache is currently using that file, the only real way is to kill the process that the file is being used by, Apache.

You can try using Unlocker on the file and see if you can remove the lock, it could help.

answered Sep 21 '11 at 13:22

Sandeep Bansal

6,452

How do I truncate or clear a file that's in use?

2 Answers2