Keep latest 5 files and delete the rest..

[scriptfinder]

Hi!

Please help me find a command or a script to keep, for ex., 5 latest files and delete the rest in the directory. The order should be file creation date.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[PHV]

And what have you tried so far ?

Hope This Helps, PH.
FAQ219-2884
FAQ181-2886

 

[sbrews]

Take a look at the man page for find. Look at the

-atime
-ctime
-mtime

options - choose the 0ne that is most appropriate for you.

I have a script that I run from cron that deletes files that have not been modified in 7+ days. The script looks something like this:

cd /some/dir
find ./ -mtime +7 -exec rm {} \;

If it finds any file in /some/dir that has not been modified in 7 (or more days), delete it.

 

[bigoldbulldog]

How about? (note the ls with a one not an 'l')

ls -1t | sed '1,5d' | xargs rm 2>/dev/null


Cheers,
ND

 

[scriptfinder]

Sorry about that...I should have searched the existing answers... anyway thanks everyone..