Move files from one directory to another based on creation/modification date

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi All,

Really stuck up with a requirement where I need to move a file (Lets say date_Employee.txt--the date will have different date values like 20120612/20120613 etc) from one directory to another based on creation/modification dates.

While visiting couple of posts, i could see we can find the files between 2 dates like below,

But I am stuck up in the step of moving the file from one to another.

Also, I need to capture the dates from the Employee File(20120612 & 20120613 in the above example) to another text file for further processing of the batch.

Can anybody pls help me with some thoughts on this.

Thanks
Freddie

2

If you want to move the resulting files to another directory, try this.

find /data/images -type f -newer /tmp/start -not -newer /tmp/end -exec mv {} /new/dir/ \;

I didn't get the another requirement. However, can't you define the dates explicitly?

start=20120612
end=20120613
3

Thank You Clx :slight_smile: I will try the command & let you know.

Let me explain my 2nd requirement. Lets assume the below,

START_DT=20120609
END_DT = 20120613

The file names in the source directory is as follows,

20120609_Employee.txt
201206011_Employee.txt
201206012_Employee.txt

In this case, i assume that using the command you gave, it will move the above files into the destination directory (provided the above files are created/modified between the above said dates).

Now, i need to create another file (lets say dates.txt) with only the dates in the files we moved. In this case,

Hope this is clear now.

Thanks Much
Freddie

4

To get dates from filenames you can use shell to remove a substring after a pattern, as in example below:

 
$ echo $a; echo ${a%_*}
123_ABC.XYZ
123