Hello!

I've got a directory structure that increments (ie 501, 502, 503) at random times based on an algorithim. Within each directory contains xml files that get counted for running metrics (ultimately i'm going to run an ls -l | wc -l and if it's below a certain number then i'll get notified).

Basically, I want to "find" the second to last directory created. So if 502 is the latest directory created, I want it to find 501, and then I'll run the metrics.

I can't use ls -lt | head because that shows access times and all my directories are accessed at random times. So, i just need to be able to find based on creation time, and not access time. Any suggestions?

ls -l |tail -n 2 |head -n 1

Actually 'ls -t' uses the last modification time, not the
access time, so a 'ls -tr|tail -n 2|head -n 1' should work
just fine.


Cheers,
Tink

Hmm ... this doesn't work; maybe i should have provided more details. The structure is as follows:

DIR/1
DIR/2
DIR/etc onwards up to 999.

Each directory is modified as xml files within DIR/1, DIR/2 (etc) are updated. So, when I run ls -l |tail -n 2 |head -n 1 in the directory that has up to DIR/600, the output is 116, when it should be 599 (remember, it needs to be the second to last directory created, and modify/access times can't be a factor). Thanks for the assistance already, it's much appreciated!

Well, if 116 was the last one written to, then maybe your algorithm
is not working properly? Or other programs (people?) are interacting
with the same directory structure? If you know for SURE that the
numerically highest and 2nd highest values are what you want just use
sort ..

ls |sort -n |tail -n 2 | head -n 1


Cheers,
Tink