Need help in sorting the file and copying

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hello Experts,

I have a requirement:

In a directory, four files are getting created on monthly basis, having timestamp in the end of every file. I want to arrange file in ascending order and copy the first file to other directory and after copying i want to remove it.

Example
-----------
Test_Directory
-File06302011
-File07312011
-File08312011
-File09302011

Copy File06302011 to some other location and after copying remove it from Test_Directory.

Please help

2

When you say the files are getting created monthly basis, does it mean that each file created every month? or all of them created at once one for each month?

--ahamed

1 Like
3

Instead of copying and removing .. just move the file to the destination path ..

$ ls File* | sort -n | nawk '{if(NR==1) {print "mv "$0" /dest/path"}}' | sh
1 Like
4

If the files maintain the timestamp then try this...

ls -t Test_Directory/FILE* | tail -1 | xargs -I {} mv {} /your/destination

--ahamed

1 Like
5

Hi Ahamed,

Yes, the file is getting created on monthly basis....every month end a new file will be created and I have to move the oldest file to some other location.

Thanks a lot experts...

6

Base on the file created each month, you can put below command in your cronjob, and it will automatically move the old files out of the test_directory.

find /test_directory -type f -mtime +90 -exec mv {} /new folder \;