If I set the current/working directory (navigating to it using cd
) to some particular directory and then type:
rm *.xvg
What will this command do? Is it true that the above command will only delete files with the extension .xvg
only in the working directory?
I was nervous about trying this before asking, because I want to be absolutely sure that the above command will only delete .xvg
files LOCATED IN THE WORKING DIRECTORY.
Best Answer
Yes,
rm *.xvg
will only delete the files with the specified extension in your current directory.A good way to make sure you are indeed in the directory you want delete your files is to use the
pwd
command which will display your current directory and then do anls
to verify you find the files you are expecting.If you are bit apprehensive about issuing the
rm
command, there are 2 things you can do:type
ls *.xvg
to see a list of what files would be affected by this command.Unless you have a lot of files, you could always also use the
-i
command line switch forrm
(also exists forcp
andmv
). Usingrm -i *.xvg
would prompt you for each individual file if it was ok to delete it, so you could be sure nothing you didn't expect was getting deleted. (This will be tedious if you have a lot of files though :)