From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 25 00:56:07 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0016416A4CE for ; Wed, 25 Aug 2004 00:56:06 +0000 (GMT) Received: from kane.otenet.gr (kane.otenet.gr [195.170.0.27]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 46D6C43D1D for ; Wed, 25 Aug 2004 00:56:05 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Received: from gothmog.gr (patr530-a049.otenet.gr [212.205.215.49]) i7P0twNV008806; Wed, 25 Aug 2004 03:55:59 +0300 Received: from gothmog.gr (gothmog [127.0.0.1]) by gothmog.gr (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id i7P0sVRv028003; Wed, 25 Aug 2004 03:54:31 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Received: (from giorgos@localhost) by gothmog.gr (8.13.1/8.13.1/Submit) id i7P0sUau028002; Wed, 25 Aug 2004 03:54:30 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 03:54:30 +0300 From: Giorgos Keramidas To: Joachim Dagerot Message-ID: <20040825005430.GA27797@gothmog.gr> References: <000001c489ff$1ab67f10$4b592650@yd5esbzvskxjc0a> <200408242216.i7OMGIp05050@thunder.trej.net> <20040824231510.GS3767@gentoo-npk.bmp.ub> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040824231510.GS3767@gentoo-npk.bmp.ub> Phone: +30-2610-312145 Mobile: +30-6944-116520 cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Bash programming, copy only onefile? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 00:56:07 -0000 On 2004-08-24 17:15, Nathan Kinkade wrote: > On Wed, Aug 25, 2004 at 12:16:17AM +0200, Joachim Dagerot wrote: > > A quiz easy to write, hard to answer? > > > > In bash, how can I write a command that moves the oldest file in a > > directory to a new direction? > > Here is one possible way, certainly there are many others: > > # ls -t /path/to/dir | tail -n 1 | xargs -i{} cp {} /path/to/location In FreeBSD 5.X there's also stat(1) which can print the modification time of files in a numeric format and can be used in pipes like this: % stat -f '%m %N' * | sort -n | head -1 | cut -d ' ' -f 2- This should print the filename of the file with the oldest modification time. Access time or creation time can also be shown using the -f 'fmt' argument of stat(1) but details about that can be found in the stat(1) manpage. - Giorgos