UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi all,

1). Is is possible to use the date builtin and subtract a literal e.g 1 day in bash alongwith the find command from the command line:

e.g

Code:

find . -name --date %Y-%m-%d - 1

2). I want to search for files in the pwd but not search any subdirectories and exclude any hidden files or hidden directories :

This is what I have so far but I am not sure how to return files but exclude the -type d in one statement:

Code:

find . -daystart \( ! -name . -prune -and ! -name ".*" \) -type f -mtime 2 -exec echo echo rm {} \;

Many thanks for your help

Moderator's Comments:

Please view this link: How to use [code]...[/code] tags

Hi daveu7,

This command get yesterday date:

Code:

date --date='1 day ago' +%Y%m%d

And to modify the date of a file use touch command with --time switch.

That is true, birei, but only for the GNU date. The POSIX specification of the date command doesn't include this option.

It is possible to use the UNIX time, which is the number of seconds since some fixed point in time (Thu, Jan 1st, 1970, 0:00 UTC). Use the current UNIX time and subtract 86400 (=1day in seconds) to get the time of one day before.

Then use the touch utility to create a file with this time stamp and use the "-newer" clause of find to select the files.

I hope this helps.

bakunin