Shell Programming and Scripting

I had allot of help with the below script, and its been a long time since i've done anything with shell scripts so I am having some trouble.

I am trying to zip the trace folder after it is copied and dated but i'm unsure of how to tell it to zip this new folder without knowing what it will be named.

The script works fine as it is now but when it goes to remove the oldest backup it takes forever due to all the files and directories within the trace folder.

Code:

c=$(ls -1 /backup/f1/ |grep -v 1f1 |wc -l)
if (("$c" >= 25))
then
f=$(ls -tr /backup/f1/ |grep -v 1f1 |head -n 1)
rm -r "/backup/f1/$f"
fi
DATE=$(date)
cp -r /lc/trace "/backup/f1/trace${DATE}"

You can first tar the trace folder (choose your name for tar file):-

Code:

tar -cvf /tc/trace.tar /lc/trace

then you can gzip the tar file:-

Code:

gzip /lc/trace.tar

Thanks for the reply. With a few additions including this everything is working smoothly. Appreciate the help.