[SOLVED] Sort output of ls as per the date in the filenames

Issue

I have group of files in a folder in following pattern file_20230502181430 i.e.

file_$(date +"%Y%m%d%H%M%S")

What I want is to read all these files in an array to sort them by the date at the end i.e. _$(date +"%Y%m%d%H%M%S"), to keep the most recent 3 files and delete rest.

How can I sort an output of ls file_* according to dates at the end of file name and have them in an array to achieve what I want? If doing it with ls isn't possible, is there another or better way to do it?

Solution

With bash. I assume that the current directory contains the files mentioned.

# expand file_* with globbing to an array
names=( file_* )

# delete all files except the last (newest) three.
for (( index=0; index<${#names[@]}-3; index++ )); do
  echo rm "${names[$index]}";
done

If output looks okay, remove echo.

Answered By - Cyrus

Answer Checked By - Willingham (WPSolving Volunteer)