Need Help to Implement a Shell Script for Deleting Directories Older then 122 Days

Venky58 · 02-03-2015, 08:41 AM

Hi All,

I need to implement Unix Shell Script for deleting the directory which is older than 122 Days.

The directories will be in below format.

06_12_2014

all the files which are older than 122 days by date have to be deleted.

/data/Isol/backup/06_12_2014

Thanks in advance for your help.

bradvan · 02-03-2015, 11:31 AM

What have you tried? What shell do you want to use? In perl, this should do it:

Code:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Time::Local;

my $path = ARGV[0];
die "Please specify which directory to search"
   unless -d $path;

my $curtime = time;

opendir ( my $DIR, $path);
while ( my $entry = readdir $DIR ) {
   next unless -d $path . '/' . $entry;
   next if $entry eq '.' or $entry eq '..';
   print "Checking directory $entry.\n";
   my ( $mon, $day, $year ) = split (/_/, $entry );
   my $dtime = timelocal(0,0,0,$day,$mon,$year);
   my $days_diff = int (( $curtime - $dtime ) / 86400 );
   if ( $days_diff > 122 ) {
      print "Delete $entry\n";
   }
}
closedir $DIR;

I haven't extensively tested it.

jpollard · 02-09-2015, 07:52 AM

One problem you will have is that a directory is not modified when files within the directory are modified. And deleting a file will also update the directory modification time.

Another is that subdirectories will isolate newly created files from being reflected in any dates of old directories...

So you can only delete directories that are empty... and older than a given time.

pan64 · 02-09-2015, 11:13 AM

and you do not need to write a script, because the command find itself can handle it (just look at the man page and the examples about deleting old files/empty dirs)

jpollard · 02-09-2015, 11:22 AM

The problem is that even find is not likely to work for what is being requested...

The time delay to delete directories is AT LEAST twice the time delay to delete files... And since it is a recursive activity, it tends to accumulate rapidly with the depth of the directory tree.

I don't think find records timestamps before it scans a directory (scanning will update access times...) as that starts to require a relatively unbounded stack. I admit, stack usage isn't that critical anymore, but still, it is something to think about.

pan64 · 02-10-2015, 01:33 AM

if you do not want to explain things but implement the original requirement: find is completely capable doing it. OP did not tell anything about the content of those directories, so probably there will be no any conflict with the files inside.
(since it was a backup directory probably all the files inside are older...)

jpollard · 02-10-2015, 05:33 AM

well, all but one... the last one put in the directory.

rtmistler · 02-10-2015, 12:48 PM

I wonder where the specification of 122 days came to be ... Or is this an assignment?

If directory names represent the date, then providing the naming rules are accurate and consistent you should be able to determine based on current date/time what 122 days back is and then perform this deletion, a script would be just computing the correct file name point.

Please make some sort of script effort, post what you have, where you're stuck. And if it is homework, then it is OK to say that, but yes the right thing to do is work at it, and ask questions, not for the forum members to suggest an exact script for you.