shell scripting question

JSLayton · 05-31-2006, 10:29 PM

Is there a way for me to write a script that will automatically delete the oldest file in a directory? Thanks in advance.

joseph · 05-31-2006, 11:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSLayton

Is there a way for me to write a script that will automatically delete the oldest file in a directory? Thanks in advance.

how do you tell the oldest file in directory?? is it by comparing it to others or how??

if you are comparing the first file with second file so in a simple way the bash script should be look like this

Code:

#
!/bin/bash
if test file1 -ot file2
then
  rm file1
fi

JSLayton · 05-31-2006, 11:24 PM

It will be a directory with about 90 files and I will just need to delete the oldest file. I have a script that automates creating tar files from a day's worth of hourly backups. After 90 days are built up, I want the script to delete the oldest tar file in the directory each time a new one is created.

joseph · 05-31-2006, 11:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSLayton

It will be a directory with about 90 files and I will just need to delete the oldest file. I have a script that automates creating tar files from a day's worth of hourly backups. After 90 days are built up, I want the script to delete the oldest tar file in the directory each time a new one is created.

When you created a new tarball with the name same as existing tar file, the tar should overwrite the existing tar file. At least this is what happen to my automate backup script which will overwrite the old tar file

thanks

spirit receiver · 06-01-2006, 06:55 AM

I think the following will do

Code:

ls -t1 | tail -1 | xargs rm