Question: I have this list of files on a Linux server:

```
abc.log.2012-03-14
abc.log.2012-03-27
abc.log.2012-03-28
abc.log.2012-03-29
abc.log.2012-03-30
abc.log.2012-04-02
abc.log.2012-04-04
abc.log.2012-04-05
abc.log.2012-04-09
abc.log.2012-04-10

```

I've been deleting selected log files one by one, using the command `rm -rf` see below:

```
rm -rf abc.log.2012-03-14
rm -rf abc.log.2012-03-27
rm -rf abc.log.2012-03-28

```

Is there another way, so that I can delete the selected files at once?

Answer: 
Use a wildcard (`*`) to match multiple files.

For example, the command below will delete all files with names beginning with `abc.log.2012-03-`.

```
rm -f abc.log.2012-03-*

```

I'd recommend running `ls abc.log.2012-03-*` to list the files so that you can see what you are going to delete before running the `rm` command.

For more details see the Bash man page on [filename expansion](http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html#Filename-Expansion).
A wild card would work nicely for this, although to be safe it would be best to make the use of the wild card as minimal as possible, so something along the lines of this:

```
rm -rf abc.log.2012-*

```

Although from the looks of it, are those just single files? The recursive option should not be necessary if none of those items are directories, so best to not use that, just for safety.