moving the the oldest file

john83reuben · 07-21-2008, 12:34 AM

Quote:

#!/projects/ilinterf/bin/expect

set f "ls -lrta /projects/ilinterf/john/expect/backupdir/*.txt"
spawn /bin/ksh

expect "h>"
send "cd /projects/ilinterf/john/expect/backupdir;mv $f /projects/ilinterf/john/expect/backupdir/testtest\n"
expect "h>"

Hi guys, above is my code. I want to move only the oldest file (when i do ls -lrta, and i can find the oldest file from a list). I did the above code...how to do tat...

above code gives error of

Quote:

mv: cannot access ls
mv: cannot access -lrta
mv: cannot access /projects/ilinterf/john/expect/backupdir/*.txt

pls help

thanks

David the H. · 07-21-2008, 07:39 AM

Deleted: I was wrong about something.

barunparichha · 07-21-2008, 07:45 AM

Check file permissions.

comm2k · 07-21-2008, 08:25 AM

Code:

ls -t -1 | tail --lines 1 | xargs -i mv {} targetfolder/

ls -t -1, ls and sort by time, output 1 item per line
tail, pick the last line
xargs, take output of tail (=filename) and run mv on it.

I would make a test directory with test files and extensively test it before using

chrism01 · 07-21-2008, 07:24 PM

ls -rt|head -1
to get oldest file