UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Very new to shell scripting. Not sure if my title is correct but I will try and explain.

Directory has 100+ files with this format, " ABCD_ABC_Abc_AB0126.abc ". When a new file gets created, the 16-19 characters in the file name gets incremented by 1. Ex...todays most recent file is "......0126.abc". Next new file name will be "......0127.abc" then next new file will be ".......0128.abc" and so on.

What I would like to do is search file names for last 16 - 19 characters, ...0126..., and if it finds something greater then copy it to another directory. I have given an example of what my script should do. Not sure if its possible but appreciate all and any help. Thanks in advance.

code:

Code:

x= 0126
y= last 16 - 19 characters in file name
if (x < y)
   copy new file to another directory
   x = y
else
   print "No new files to copy."

Files have filetimes - one is the last date/time the file was written to. It is called the file mtime, most often.

If you can simply look for files that match your pattern, grab the most recent one. If those files get created every hour or so it becomes even easier.

IF you give us more information about what you are trying to accomplish - NOT how to code it - we can give you very good answers.

As presented your code would skip over copying a file because there are two newer files not one. And how do you track what the last one copied over was? You don't with your code.

Please give us more to go on.
what shell?
What OS?
what do you want to accomplish? -- not how to code it.

Hello Jim,

Appreciate the response and help.

Shell - bash
OS - unix

What I am trying to accomplish is to have a script that I can schedule to look for new file in directory A. If it finds any new file to copy them into directory B. A file normally gets created every other day but that is not always the case. So, I need to check directory A everyday. 3 files get created when a new file is saved. I only need the "......0127.abc" file to be copied.

Code:

.....0127.abc
.....0127.abc.sav
.....0127.abc.log

Hope this makes sense. Thanks in advance.

Try

Code:

X=126
for FN in $(ls ABCD*)
   do   T=${FN%.*}
        NO=${T##*[A-Z]}
        [[ 10#$NO -gt $X ]] && echo mv ${FN%${NO}*}${NO}${FN#*${NO}} ./NEWDIR/
   done
mv ABCD_ABC_Abc_AB0127.abc ./NEWDIR/
mv ABCD_ABC_Abc_AB0128.abc ./NEWDIR/

Hi RudiC,

Sorry for the inconvenience. Still trying to wrap my head around the coding. Can you go over the script line by line so that I can get a better understanding of the coding? Trying to follow the coding and a bit confused. Appreciate the help. Thanks in advance.

Look into your shell's man page: parameter expansion: Remove matching pre-/suffix pattern.
Using those, the number is isolated from the filename for the comparison.

BTW, I forgot to mention that the echo is there for testing only. If happy what is printed, remove it to actually move the files.

Above script can be simplified a bit:

Code:

X=126
for FN in $(ls ABCD*)
   do   T=${FN%.*}
        NO=${T##*[A-Z]}
        [[ 10#$NO -gt $X ]] && echo mv $FN ./NEWDIR/
   done

Hi RudiC,

Got error message when I ran the script. Looks like it didn't like the extension?

Code:

"line 6: [[: 10#0124.rpd: syntax error: invalid arithmetic operator (error token is ".rpd")"