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Sort files by date in filename

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# 1  
Old 12-26-2011
Sort files by date in filename
Hi, I am a newbie to shell programming and I need some help in sorting a list of files in ascending order of date in the filenames.

The file format is always : IGL01_AC_D_<YYYYMMDD>_N01_01
For example, in a directory MyDirectory I have the following files:

Code:
IGL01_AC_D_20110712_N01_01.dat
IGL01_AC_D_20110615_N01_01.dat
IGL01_AC_D_20110914_N01_01.dat

I want to sort and process them in the following ascending order:
Code:
IGL01_AC_D_20110615_N01_01.dat
IGL01_AC_D_20110712_N01_01.dat
IGL01_AC_D_20110914_N01_01.dat

Can anyone please help me in achieving this?

I have try with ls comand which only sort the files according to the modification and creating date that UNIX assign to them but that not my goal. The goal is to sort by the date in the filename.
Thanking you in advance.
Last edited by radoulov; 12-26-2011 at 03:40 PM.. Reason: Code tags!
# 2  
Old 12-26-2011
Note that given the filename format the shell will sort the filenames as you want
(just try executing ls -1 *.dat or printf '%s\n' *.dat).
This User Gave Thanks to radoulov For This Post:
Yuggy
# 3  
Old 12-26-2011
Hello radoulov,
Thank you very much for your quick reply.
I have tested the code in your reply on my vmware machine for some files in the same format and indeed that really work!. Smilie

I will integrate this piece of code in my script tomorrow and test the whole code on my real UNIX machine.

---------- Post updated at 03:21 PM ---------- Previous update was at 03:07 PM ----------

Can you please advise how should the command be if for example the files are different like for example:

Code:
IGL01_AC_D_20110615_N01_01.dat
IGL01_AC_D_20110712_N01_02.dat 
IGL01_AC_D_20110914_N01_01.dat
IGL01_AC_D_20110702_N01_01.dat
IGL01_AC_D_20110302_N01_02.dat

and still i want to sort them by the date in the filename
Thank you.
Last edited by radoulov; 12-26-2011 at 04:38 PM..
# 4  
Old 12-26-2011
Code:
printf '%s\n' *.dat | sort -t_ -k4,4

This User Gave Thanks to radoulov For This Post:
Yuggy
# 5  
Old 12-27-2011
Many many thanks to you. That was the way I play with your above reply:
Infact on production the filename has the following format:

IGL01_AC_D_<YYYYMMDD>_<N01>_<01>.dat where all the paramaters in angular brakets can be changed. N01 becomes N02 etc, 01 becomes 02 03 etc and
<YYYYMMDD> also.
From your code, I undertstood that -k4,4 is the position in the filename on which I want to sort..am i right?

I used your above logic to sort the file on the three columns with :

Code:
ls IGL01*.dat | sort -t_ -k4,4 -k5,5 -k6,6

Works pretty good..thank you again very much Smilie
Last edited by radoulov; 12-27-2011 at 09:17 AM.. Reason: Code tags.
# 6  
Old 12-27-2011
Yes,
it works like this.

By the way, -k4,4 -k5,5 ... should be the default behavior,
thus in this case -k4 should be sufficient.
This User Gave Thanks to radoulov For This Post:
Yuggy
# 7  
Old 12-27-2011
So basically, you mean that even if I have for example the following files:

Code:
IGL01_AC_D_20110615_N01_01.dat
IGL01_AC_D_20110614_N02_01.dat
IGL01_AC_D_20110614_N01_01.dat
IGL01_AC_D_20110614_N01_02.dat

Code:
ls IGL01*.dat | sort -t_ -k4

will give the following result?

Code:
IGL01_AC_D_20110614_N01_01.dat
IGL01_AC_D_20110614_N01_02.dat
IGL01_AC_D_20110614_N02_01.dat
IGL01_AC_D_20110615_N01_01.dat
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