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

Straightforward file counter:

max=12
n=0
ls -1t *.dat |
while read file; do
    n=$((n+1))
    if [[ $n -gt $max ]]; then
        rm -f "$file"
    fi
done