CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bash
user1856596
user1856596

Reputation: 7233

Deleting files by date in a shell script?

I have a directory with lots of files. I want to keep only the 6 newest. I guess I can look at their creation date and run rm on all those that are too old, but is the a better way for doing this? Maybe some linux command I could use?

Thanks!

:)

Upvotes: 2

Views: 643

Answers (2)

William
William

Reputation: 4925

Here's my take on it, as a script. It does handle spaces in file names even if it is a bit of a hack.

#!/bin/bash

eval set -- $(ls -t1  | sed -e 's/.*/"&"/')

if [[ $# -gt 6 ]] ; then
    shift 6
    while [[ $# -gt 0 ]] ; do
        echo "remove this file: $1" # rm "$1"
        shift
    done
fi

The second option to ls up there is a "one" for one file name per line. Doesn't actually seem to matter, though, since that appears to be the default when ls isn't feeding a tty.

Upvotes: 0

sehe
sehe

Reputation: 392863

rm -v $(ls -t mysvc-*.log | tail -n +7)
  • ls -t, list sorted by time
  • tail -n +7, +7 here means length-7, so all but first 7 lines
  • $() makes a list of strings from the enclosed command output
  • rm to remove the files, of course
  • Beware files with space in their names, $() splits on any white-space!

Upvotes: 5

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