Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi,

I am writing a script which keeps on checking for the folder updated in some directory and and if it updated then the current folder will point to the new folder.

Suppose the folder current folder is 22 and after next release it will be 23 and so on. so i need to keep checking for updation in the folder and if updated then it should start point to the latest one--
I have written the below script

the problem will be i am setting the currentfolder as 22.. I wanted a more flexible way to do it.

The directory contains the folder as names 22,23,24,25........

Thanks

I don't understand what you are trying to achieve, but for sure

Code:

newfolder=`ls -ltr | tail -1`

is an erroneous line if you want to compare it with an integer ... you should at least remove the -l option of the ls command or extract the 9nth field in one way or another.

Code:

newfolder=`ls -lrt | awk '/^d/{x=$9}END{print x}'`

what exactly you mean when you say "more flexible way"

What i wanto achieve is explained again-
The current folder is say 22 and it contains the latest release contents.The current foldder will be used by other applications.
After some time there is one release done and the folder will be named 23. Release after release the folder name will be incremented by one.
So i need to keep pointing to the current folder automatically.
I will take into consideration your suggestion of removing the l option.

Thanks

If someone create a dummy file is the directory of an old release, (let's say release 19) then the release 19 will appear as the "last updated" and will automagically be set as the current release ... which of course is an unexpected behaviour.

So in fact what you want is setting the current release by "highest number" and not "last updated"
... isn't it ?

Hi ctsgnb,

You made a valid point, thanks for that.
How should i get the highest number ?

Thanks

You could try something like

Code:

newfolder=`ls -l | grep ^d | awk '{print$9}' | grep ^[0-9][0-9]*$ | sort -k 1n | tail -1`

or

Code:

newfolder=`ls -l | nawk '(/^d/&&($9==(int($9)))){x=(x<$9)?$9:x}END{print x}'`

if you don't have nawk , replace it with awk instead