Shell script to count files, then remove oldest files

Question

I am new to shell scripting, so I need some help here. I have a directory that fills up with backups. If I have more than 10 backup files, I would like to remove the oldest fi

Answer 1

I just found this topic and the solution from mikecolley helped me in a first step. As I needed a solution for a single line homematic (raspberrymatic) script, I ran into a problem that this command only gave me the fileames and not the whole path which is needed for "rm". My used CUxD Exec command can not start in a selected folder.

So here is my solution:

ls -A1t $(find /media/usb0/backup/ -type f -name homematic-raspi*.sbk) | tail -n +11 | xargs rm

Explaining:

• find /media/usb0/backup/ -type f -name homematic-raspi*.sbk searching only files -type f whiche are named like -name homematic-raspi*.sbk (case sensitive) or use -iname (case insensitive) in folder /media/usb0/backup/
• ls -A1t $(...) list the files given by find without files starting with "." or ".." -A sorted by mtime -t and with a return of only one column -1
• tail -n +11 return of only the last 10 -n +11 lines for following rm
• xargs rm and finally remove the raiming files in the list

Maybe this helps others from longer searching and makes the solution more flexible.