Check number of files in directory and if equal or more than 5 - remove the oldest one

Question

I'm trying to create a cron job to create mysql backups. I would like to be able to first check how many files are there in the directory and if there are 5 or more remove one (the oldest) and create a new mysqldump. I know how to create the mysqldump, but not sure about the condition. I'm planning to store the procedure in the .sh file and trigger that file once a day with the cronjob. Could someone show the example of what the procedure should look like?

And what your question is? – Eugene Mayevski 'Callback Jan 13 '13 at 10:02 — Eugene Mayevski 'Callback, Jan 13 '13 at 10:02
Just updated the question - with the question :) – Spencer Mark Jan 13 '13 at 10:04 — Spencer Mark, Jan 13 '13 at 10:04

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 14 '13 at 22:57

You could wrap the following in a shell script

for file_to_delete in `ls -1ta test* | tail --lines=+6` ; do echo "ENTER_CMD_HERE $file_to_delete" ; done

where
- test is name of file (replace it with path + name of the mysql bkp files)
- replace ENTER_CMD_HERE with say rm

Check number of files in directory and if equal or more than 5 - remove the oldest one

1 Answers1