Linux / UNIX: For Loop To Remove Files

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In Linux/Unix, you can use a for loop to remove multiple files at once. Here’s how to do it:

  1. Open a terminal window.
  2. Navigate to the directory where the files you want to remove are located.
  3. Type the following command to start the for loop:
for file in file1 file2 file3

Replace “file1”, “file2”, and “file3” with the names of the files you want to remove. If you want to remove all files in the directory, you can use a wildcard character (*) to match all files:

for file in *

This will set up the for loop to iterate through the files you want to remove.

  1. Type the command to remove the files inside the loop. For example, to remove each file, you can use the rm command:
for file in file1 file2 file3
do
rm $file
done

Or, if you want to remove all files in the directory, you can use the following command:

for file in *
do
rm $file
done
  1. When you’re finished with the loop, type done to exit the loop.
for file in *
do
rm $file
done

This will execute the loop and remove the files specified.

Note that the for loop syntax is used to define the list of files to remove, and the rm command is used to remove each file. Be careful when using the rm command, as it permanently deletes files and cannot be undone.

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