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Create a backup utility

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# 1  
Old 12-07-2009
Create a backup utility
hi there,

looking for a tad assistance if at all possible, im trying to create a backup that will backup all files with a particular .ext to a new folder with the same file name but also with the last modified time and date in the file name ie
so if the file information.txt was last modified at 03:15:34 27 Apr 2009 the backup file would show information_(03:15:34 27/04/2009).txt

any sugestions on how i can achieve this? so far all ive managed is

Code:
cp *txt ../backup/word/

sorry im really terrible with this shell scripting Smilie
# 2  
Old 12-08-2009
You can't use slashes in filenames since they are separators for directory structures. Example

Code:
$> ll *txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2009-12-08 07:50 bla1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2009-12-08 07:50 bla2.txt
$> for file in *.txt; do cp -p $file subdir/`echo $file| sed 's/\.txt//g'`_`ls -l $file| awk 'NF > 2 {print $6"_"$7}'`.txt; done
$> ll subdir
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 2009-12-08 07:53 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 isau users 4096 2009-12-08 07:50 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root     0 2009-12-08 07:50 bla1_2009-12-08_07:50.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root     0 2009-12-08 07:50 bla2_2009-12-08_07:50.txt

If you have filenames with blanks in them you might want to use a while loop instead of the for loop.
# 3  
Old 12-08-2009
Depending on the possibilities of your 'date' command.
Type 'man date' and search for an -r option to retrieve the date from the datestamp of the file, else you'll have to use 'stat' and parse the data returned.

I recomend to use a date format that puts the most significant at the beginning for a better sorting. It could also be better to avoid spaces and ':' in the date string.
Something like
information_09-12-08_07-49-00.txt would be returned with
Code:
FILE=information.txt
NEWFILE="${FILE%*.}_$(date -r ${FILE} +%y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S).${FILE##*.}
echo "New file name: $NEWFILE"

You can modify the date format at your convenience. (see 'man date')
# 4  
Old 12-08-2009
hello
what you are trying to do is devastating. I must say .
#cp *.txt /some_dir/
what this does is the shell expands any metacharacter to its real value . for e.g. if you have files like abc.txt def.txt ddd.txt then the above shell command expands to.
#cp abc.txt def.txt ddd.txt /some_dir
this apparently doenst make any sense.
So you better use find for this purpose.
aka find/exec to do this work
find . iname "*.txt" -mtime blah_blah(look at the date format) -exec cp {} /some/path/to/backup/ \;
regards.
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