Fedora

okay, so what I recommend when you have the time is to read the man page for 'sh' or 'bash' which will explain how 'for' works, as well as backticks, redirects, substitution, etc.

also read the man pages for 'find' and 'ls' --especially 'ls'.

so in your directory example

Code:

cd mydirectory
COUNT_SUBDIRS=`find . -type d ... |wc -l` # directories - get the number

to list a directory by time, use 'ls -t' the newest will be at the top (head -1) the oldest at the bottom (tail -1)

to loop through the list in this order use the construct:

Code:

for newvar in list
do
...stuff...
done

or for example

Code:

for each in `ls -t`
do
  # test for directory
  # store oldest dir  (should be first dir encountered)
  # store newest dir (should be last dir encountered)
done

thanks for the bits! hope this helps. def read those man pages!

dv

Thanks, I have 90% of these scripts done.

My last problem is that still, despite your code, I cannot list the oldest and newest subdirectories. I tried other solutions online but there's not much, and it only seems to display the oldest/newest in THAT directory without branching further...oh well...this stuff is due in an hour anyhow. I'll cross my fingers, and if I don't get it by then, then at least this stuff is better than nothing. Thanks so much for the assistance.