Delete/move/copy files of specific date

imsajjadali · 10-22-2004, 05:50 AM

I want to delete files of specific date, how can I do it?
for example I have file list as
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 10484224 Oct 22 14:41 1_19390.dbf
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 10484224 Oct 22 14:42 1_19391.dbf
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 10484224 Oct 22 14:42 1_19392.dbf
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 10484224 Oct 22 14:43 1_19393.dbf
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 10484224 Oct 22 14:43 1_19394.dbf
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 10484224 Oct 22 14:43 1_19395.dbf
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 10484224 Oct 22 14:44 1_19396.dbf
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 10484224 Oct 22 14:44 1_19397.dbf
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 10484224 Oct 22 14:45 1_19398.dbf
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 10484224 Oct 22 14:46 1_19399.dbf

I want to delete files of dated Oct 22 2004.

It will be more helpfull if some body also tell me how to move and copy of specific date files.

Thanks in advance
Sajjad

ugge · 10-24-2004, 04:16 AM

Using the find command and command pipes you can search out the files you like and then send them to the correct command.

Code:

find -mtime 2

This would find all files modified 2*24h=48h ago. This result can be piped to the rm command like this

Code:

find -mtime 2 | xargs rm

the xargs is necesary for rm to accept the listing as an argument list. There is also a built in exec function in find.

imsajjadali · 10-25-2004, 12:38 AM

what -mtime mean?

imsajjadali · 10-25-2004, 03:09 AM

The following error message generated on this command
[oracle@visionapps1 test]$ find -mtime 2 | xargs rm
rm: too few arguments

ugge · 10-25-2004, 08:05 AM

Sorry forgot an important argument that goes right after find, it's the search path

Code:

find /usr/local/ -mtime 2

The -mtime is modified time.
There are at least three timestamps:
atime accessed
ctime changed
mtime modified

imsajjadali · 10-25-2004, 11:49 PM

I did not get solution. I have folder /home/test/. this folder contains the number of files such as
a.txt
b.txt
c.txt
d.txt
.......

I just want system delete only those files from above given files which are created during last one day.

thanks

ugge · 10-26-2004, 07:59 AM

The ctime option most closely describes your request
The man page for find says like this about the ctime option.

Quote:

-ctime n
File's status was last changed n*24 hours ago.

This means last time the metadata (information about the data file) was changed. That could be creation of the file, file moved, file name changed, attributes changed on file...
(Correct me if that wasn't a correct explanation.)

imsajjadali · 11-02-2004, 04:36 AM

but I have unabled to delete the files of last five days

imsajjadali · 11-02-2004, 04:46 AM

can any body tell me how I can delete the files of specific dates????

ggarron · 11-14-2007, 06:16 PM

you may use this

find -mtime 2 -type f -exec rm {} \;

this way should work

Guillermo Garron
Linux Operating System

trebek · 11-16-2007, 04:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ggarron

you may use this

find -mtime 2 -type f -exec rm {} \;

this way should work

Guillermo Garron
Linux Operating System

Ok, i got here by searching, so i didn't have to open a new thread to ask my very similar question.

I need to move files in a mounted remote directory, to a local directory, right? I need to move the files that are from yesterday alone. So, if a file was created yesterday, that file needs to be moved. So basically i need to find the files that have a date 'yesterday' and move them over. Just out of being a Sammy Sosa, i guess i could do something like:
find /sourcedirectory -mtime 1 | mv /destination/directory

I hope i didn't make a big mess out of my explanation.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Verve1986 · 11-20-2007, 05:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by trebek

Ok, i got here by searching, so i didn't have to open a new thread to ask my very similar question.

I need to move files in a mounted remote directory, to a local directory, right? I need to move the files that are from yesterday alone. So, if a file was created yesterday, that file needs to be moved. So basically i need to find the files that have a date 'yesterday' and move them over. Just out of being a Sammy Sosa, i guess i could do something like:
find /sourcedirectory -mtime 1 | mv /destination/directory

I hope i didn't make a big mess out of my explanation.

Thanks in advance for the help.

use the -exec option of find and type

find /sourcedirectory -mtime 1 -exec mv "{}" /destination/directory/ \;

this will work as you wanted.

trebek · 11-20-2007, 01:19 PM

What does "{}" mean? Should i put something in between those brackets? And many thanks for the prompt answer!!!

gilead · 11-20-2007, 04:58 PM

From the man page for find:

Code:

The  string `{}' is replaced by the current file name being processed

chrism01 · 11-20-2007, 07:49 PM

For grabbing files of a given date, using just basic shell cmds:

Code:

for file in `ls`
do
    day=`ls -lt $file|cut -d' ' -f6`
    if [[ $day = "2007-11-21" ]]
    then
        echo "$file matched"
    fi
done

If you have to use the date format in the OP, you'd also have to fool around with the date cmd or substring options to match the relevant bits