UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi All,

I have a question.
i have a directory say /home/pavi/logs

ls -ltr gives all the files in the /home/pavi/logs directory.

i am trying to move only those files existing in this
folder prior to 2 days.

i.e files exiting say May 9th and May 8th remain in this directory
but all the remaining files should be moved to a destination dir
say /hom/pavi

can anyone please suggest me with some ideas.

thanks
pavi

This works for moving the files more than 2 days old (2 * 24 hours Change the number accordingly after mtime parameter)
mv `find /home/pavi/logs/*.* -mtime +2 -exec ls {} \;` /home/pavi

Gopinath

When I use this for my script I get a bunch of errors. I thought I could use Xargs but I get this:

usage: mv [-f | -i | -n] [-v] source target
mv [-f | -i | -n] [-v] source ... directory

Here's my code:

find /home/pavi/logs/ -mtime +21 -exec ls {} \; | xargs mv /home/pavi

Any thoughts? Thanks.

Did you put the quote in front of find command and close the quote after the semicolon? This statement works fine and move all the files prior to 2 days old.

Do I need to use the quotes? I thought I didn't since I was piping to xargs? Thanks!

UPDATE: After putting the backquotes in here's the error I get:

-sh: ./.DS_Store: cannot execute binary file

Please post exactly what you are typing to move the files.

Try to Copy or make changes to the paths and execute the command below and it should move the files older than 2 days old.

mv `find /home/pavi/logs/*.* -mtime +2 -exec ls {} \;` /home/pavi

Hi, gthokala.

Here's the exact line I'm using:

(first I cd to the directory I want to 'find' in)

find . -mtime +21 -exec ls {} \; | xargs mv /Volumes/FTP_drive/FTP/temp_save

When I run this I get:

usage: mv [-f | -i | -n] [-v] source target
mv [-f | -i | -n] [-v] source ... directory
usage: mv [-f | -i | -n] [-v] source target
mv [-f | -i | -n] [-v] source ... directory
xargs: unterminated quote

and no files moved.

I'll try your code right now. Thanks!