rm to match multiple file extensions

How to merge these two commands together

rm *.html
rm *.xml

3 Answers

Simply rm *.html *.xml

Also see the man pages for Linux (or macOS) or try tldr which currently gives this output:

$ tldr rm
rm
Remove files or directories.
- Remove files from arbitrary locations: rm path/to/file path/to/another/file
- Recursively remove a directory and all its subdirectories: rm -r path/to/folder
- Forcibly remove a directory, without prompting for confirmation or showing error messages: rm -rf path/to/folder
- Interactively remove multiple files, with a prompt before every removal: rm -i file(s)
- Remove files in verbose mode, printing a message for each removed file: rm -v path/to/folder/*
$

Simply use

rm *.html *.xml

It’s the shell that interprets the wildcard pattern(s) to carry out the filename expansion – not the rm command.

If you experience an error with the accepted answer, when there are no .html files, you could also chain the commands instead like:rm *.html; rm *.xml