How to remove files generated for a particular month in ubuntu linux

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I need to delete some files generated for a particular month to free up space in the hard disk.  
The files are populated as below:  
DRB_UCA231_MBU063_6156_20190801063645.csv.gz  
DRB_UCA231_MBU064_6156_20190801063659.csv.gz  
DRB_UCA231_MBU024_6156_20200801064402.csv.gz  
DRB_UCA231_MBU025_6156_20200801064445.csv.gz 

So  I need to remove for the month *201908*. Then I issued this command:  
rm DRB_UCA231_*201908*.csv.gz

But got an error:  
-bash: /bin/rm: Argument list too long  

Kindly help provide a working command.

What I have tried:

rm DRB_UCA231_*201908*.csv.gz

But got an error:  
-bash: /bin/rm: Argument list too long

Posted 16-Mar-22 11:58am

Member 13739674

Updated 16-Mar-22 12:38pm

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k5054 · Answer 1 · 2022-03-16T12:38:00

The slow way

Bash

for file in DRB_UCA231_*201908*.csv.gz; do
  rm $file
done

The faster way

Bash

ls | grep "^DRB_UCA231_.*201908.*\.csv\.gz$" | xargs rm

The second case we're using a grep regex, so we have to escape periods, so they don't match the "any char" pattern, and we also anchor the pattern at either end. I think it might be faster with the anchors, and of course, we don't get any false hits.
In either case I think I'd do some sort of backup first, just in case the pattern/glob matches things I don't want deleted!