UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I need to read the contents of the latest file. Below is a sample. I can use the tail command but can this be put into a script?

I just need to read the latest TWSMERGE.log


-rwxr--r-- 1 tws unison 431581 Feb 06 05:01 20080205_TWSMERGE.log
-rwxr--r-- 1 tws unison 5353 Feb 07 04:59 20080206_NETMAN.log
-rwxr--r-- 1 tws unison 431089 Feb 07 05:01 20080206_TWSMERGE.log
-rwxr--r-- 1 tws unison 5353 Feb 08 04:59 20080207_NETMAN.log
-rwxr--r-- 1 tws unison 430095 Feb 08 05:03 20080207_TWSMERGE.log
-rwxr--r-- 1 tws unison 5353 Feb 09 04:59 20080208_NETMAN.log
-rwxr--r-- 1 tws unison 431690 Feb 09 05:01 20080208_TWSMERGE.log
-rwxr--r-- 1 tws unison 6307 Feb 09 16:25 20080209_NETMAN.log
-rwxr--r-- 1 tws unison 351434 Feb 09 18:00 20080209_TWSMERGE.log

Something like this?

Code:

cat `ls -ctur *_TWSMERGE.log | tail -1`

Thanks, HPAVC

This is what I have. Your command works but I just want to read the Lates/current file so I put *0209_TWSMERGE.log which works but I will probably have to change it again tomorrow?

cat `ls -ctur *0209_TWSMERGE.log | tail -l` > /usr/Tivoli/TWS/USERS/t0571897/report1
more $MYHOME/report1 |grep "SUCCESSFULLY" > $MYHOME/report2

I might be way to sleepy to understand the problem, i assume you have a directory full of log files and every so often a new one is made.

"ls -ctr PATTERN" should list the contents

-t sort by modification time
-r reverse order while sorting
-c just one column

so if the files where

mon.txt
thu.txt
tues.txt
wed.txt

ls -ctr *.txt would list them

mon.txt
tues.txt
wed.txt
thu.txt

the tail -1 just lists the last file (the newly modifed one)

so "cat `ls -ctr *.txt | tail -1`" gives cat the newest modified file.

if the issue is that you want some sexy 'look busy' dedicated window that always has the tail -f LATESTFILE going. yeah some sort of loop would be needed or a sexy tail. I dont know the tail command you have but ...

#
# this will try and get a PID from something and when that PID dies it will
# 'untail', then re-tail
#
while true; do
PID=`cat /var/run/TWSMERGINGTHING.pid`
tail --pid=$PID --follow `ls -ctr *_TWSMERGE.log | tail -1`
sleep 5
done

#
# this will keep tailing until the file goes sour (100 attempts looking
# at it with the no changes) and then it will get a new one
#
while true; do
tail --max-unchanged-stats=100 --follow `ls -ctr *_TWSMERGE.log | tail -1`
sleep 5
done

if you have a 'runfor' like command then obviously you could do that for "runfor 3600 tail ..." and it would run it for an hour and then retail every hour.

now for sleep