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Can any one please tell me the command that can be used to delete files of a particular extension such as .doc or .txt or .class etc from a folder or a directory on Linux? I want to delete the files together not individually though. Thanks a lot.

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is right that a simple shell glob works. A few gotchas to keep in mind: the shell (not rm) expands the pattern, so unmatched globs can behave differently across shells, and globs typically do not match dotfiles unless the pattern starts with a dot. Also, deleting huge sets with a glob can hit the "argument list too long" limit. See the GNU docs for details on rm and pattern matching in Bash: rm invocation, Bash pattern matching.

For a safer, predictable approach that also handles recursion and very large sets, use find. Quote the pattern so the shell does not expand it before find sees it.

Preview (no deletion), current directory only:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -name '*.txt' -print

Delete, current directory only:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -name '*.txt' -delete

Recursive delete (all subfolders):

find . -type f -name '*.class' -delete

Multiple extensions or case-insensitive match:

find . -type f \( -name '*.txt' -o -name '*.doc' \) -delete
find . -type f -iname '*.doc' -delete

If you want a prompt for each file:

find . -type f -name '*.class' -ok rm -- {} \;

-delete is a GNU find action; for portability, replace it with:

find . -type f -name '*.txt' -exec rm -- {} +

These patterns include hidden files that match the extension, unlike most plain globs. Always double-check with -print first. References: GNU findutils manual.

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Member Avatar for Sturm

rm *.<extension>

Member Avatar for tech291083

Hi,

Thanks a lot for the help.

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