3 ways to delete specific files in a directory using bash shell

I am a new Linux user. Now I need to clean up the files in a download directory. In fact, I just want to delete all the files in the ~/Download/ folder except the files in the following formats:

1.*.iso - all iso formats document.
2.*.zip - All files in zip format.

How do I delete specific files in a bash shell on a Linux, OS X or Unix-like system?

Bash shell supports rich file pattern matching characters, such as:

1.* - matches all files.
2.? - Matches a single letter in a file name.
3.[...] - Matches any letter in the enclosing bracket.

Strategy #1: Meet the extended pattern matching characters

Here you need to use the system’s built-in shopt command to enable the extglob option in the shell, and then you can use the extended pattern matching characters , these pattern matching characters are as follows:

1.? (pattern list) - Matches the given pattern zero or once.
2.*(Pattern List) – Matches the given pattern zero or more times.
3.+(pattern list) - Match the given pattern at least once.
4.@(pattern list) - Match the given pattern once.
5.!(pattern list) - does not match the given pattern.

A pattern list is one or more patterns (file names) separated by |.

First turn on the extgolb option:

shopt -s extglob

Delete all files except .zip and .iso files in Bash
The syntax format of the rm command is:

## 仅保留 file1 文件 ##
rm  !(file1)
 
## 仅保留 file1 和 file2 文件## 
rm  !(file1|file2)
 
## 仅保留 zip 文件 ##
rm  !(*.zip)
 
## 仅保留 zip 和 iso 文件 ##
rm  !(*.zip|*.iso)
 
## 你也可以使用完整的目录 ##
rm /Users/vivek/!(*.zip|*.iso|*.mp3)
 
## 也可以传递参数 ##
rm [选项]  !(*.zip|*.iso)
rm -v  !(*.zip|*.iso)
rm -f  !(*.zip|*.iso)
rm -v -i  !(*.php)

Strategy #2: Use bash's GLOBIGNORE variable to delete all files except the specified file

Excerpted from the bash(1) man page:

This is a colon-separated list of patterns, by path The expansion mode defines the set of files to be ignored. If a file matching a path expansion pattern also matches a pattern in GLOBIGNORE, it is removed from the match list.

To delete all files and keep only zip and iso files, set GLOBIGNORE as follows:

## 只在 BASH 中可行 ##
cd ~/Downloads/
GLOBIGNORE=*.zip:*.iso
rm -v *
unset GLOBIGNORE

Strategy #3: Use the find command to delete all other files and keep only zip and iso files

If you are using tcsh/csh/sh/ksh or other shells, you can try to delete files using the following find command syntax on Unix-like systems:

find /dir/ -type f -not -name '匹配模式' -delete

or

## 对于怪异的文件名可以使用 xargs ##
find /dir/ -type f -not -name '匹配模式' -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} rm {}
find /dir/ -type f -not -name '匹配模式' -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} rm [选项] {}

If you want to delete files other than php in the ~/source directory, type:

find ~/sources/ -type f -not -name '*.php' -delete

or

find ~/sources/ -type f -not -name '*.php' -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} rm -v {}

The syntax to keep only *.zip and *.iso files is as follows:

find . -type f -not \( -name '*zip' -or -name '*iso' \) -delete

For more shell articles related to deleting specific files, please pay attention to the PHP Chinese website!