Delete All Files Matching Pattern In Directory

Question

How can I delete all files containing -20 in the filename in the current directory?

I have

ls | grep "-20" | rm -rf

But that does not work. Ideas?

Thanks.

ramruma · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-24 06:55:10Z

up vote 3 down vote accepted

rm -- *-20*

The -- stops -20 being treated as an argument to rm if the file -20 exists.

answered Jun 24 '12 at 6:55

ramruma
1,839146

Andy Lester · Answer 2 · 2012-11-02 17:24:07Z

Your problem with

ls | grep "-20" | rm -rf  # DOESN'T WORK

is that you're piping filenames to rm but rm doesn't read from standard input. You need to use xargs to call rm repeatedly like:

ls | grep '-20' | xargs rm -rf

But really, you don't want to use ls | grep to find file names. Use the find command.

find . -name '*-20' | xargs rm -rf

But of course as the other poster said, the best solution is to rm -- *-20*.

2 Answers