How to remove all files starting with a certain string in Linux

Question

I need to find all files starting with the name NAME in a directory tree and remove all these files using one shell command.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-10 12:14:23Z

up vote -2 down vote accepted

to delete all files which name has name--- you can use

find -name . 'name*' -exec rm {} \;

edited Oct 10 '12 at 12:14

Community♦
1

answered Oct 2 '12 at 12:48

Dharshana

	You can also add -f as an 'rm' argument so you don't get prompted for "Are you sure you want to remove X file?" – UtahJarhead Oct 2 '12 at 14:01
	Which version of `grep` has an `-exec` switch? – Ben Graham Oct 3 '12 at 2:55
	How did this get to be the accepted answer ? The syntax for `find` is completely wrong. – Paul R Oct 24 '12 at 13:18

Paul R · Answer 2 · 2012-10-02 12:19:23Z

Delete all files in current directory and its sub-directories where the file name starts with "foo":

$ find . -type f -name foo\* -exec rm {} \;

NB: use with caution - back up first - also do a dry run first, e.g.

$ find . -type f -name foo\*

will just tell you the names of the files that would be deleted.

KingsIndian · Answer 3 · 2012-10-02 12:22:38Z

up vote 2 down vote

You can use find:

find . -name "name*" -exec rm {} \;

answered Oct 2 '12 at 12:22

KingsIndian
32813

Also instead of specifying '.' you can specify an absolute path. – UtahJarhead Oct 2 '12 at 14:02

migrated from stackoverflow.com Oct 2 '12 at 13:40