Shell script to count files, then remove oldest files

Question

I am new to shell scripting, so I need some help here. I have a directory that fills up with backups. If I have more than 10 backup files, I would like to remove the oldest fi

Answer 1

I like the answers from @Dennis Williamson and @Dale Hagglund. (+1 to each)

Here's another way to do it using find (with the -newer test) that is similar to what you started with.

This was done in bash on cygwin...

if [[ $(ls /backups | wc -l) > 10 ]]
then
  find /backups ! -newer $(ls -t | sed '11!d') -exec rm {} \;
fi