I'd do it using xargs. First, run this to make sure you've got the right directory etc:
ls /tmp/foo/* | xargs -n1 echo rm
...where /tmp/foo
is the directory. That should print out something like this:
rm /tmp/foo/1
rm /tmp/foo/2
rm /tmp/foo/3
rm /tmp/foo/4
rm /tmp/foo/5
rm /tmp/foo/6
rm /tmp/foo/7
rm /tmp/foo/8
rm /tmp/foo/9
rm /tmp/foo/10
....where 1
, 2
, 3
and so on are the first ten files. Double-check that the filenames look sane, then run the command again, but this time remove the echo
and the head
so that it runs for real:
ls /tmp/foo/* | xargs -n1 rm