find files of certain date

[Fuad_1]

Hi,

I have many files with different creation date, I want to find and copy files of date 19 Dec, please help.

[MarkSyder]

Hi Fuad,

Assuming you're in the correct directory already, ll|grep "Dec 19" will identify the files for you.

If you need to search sub-directories, you will need to use the find command. If I have any spare moments I'll play about with it to try to find the format you need.

Mark Syder (like the drink but spelt different)

[Robert-Jan Goossens]

Hi,

# find /dir -exec ls -l {}\; | grep "Dec 19" | while read LINE
do
cp $LINE /dir
done

Robert-Jan

[Dietmar Konermann]

You cannot check for the creation date. Only for last access (atime), last modification (mtime) or last file status change (ctime).

You could look for the -mtime option of find...

-mtime n
True if the file modification time subtracted from the initialization time is n-1 to n multiples of 24 h. The initialization time shall be a time between the invocation of the find utility and the first access by that invocation of the find utility to any file specified in its path operands.

Try e.g.:

# find -mtime 3

Best regards...
Dietmar.

[Fuad_1]

with -mtime 3 it gives files for 19 and 20 Dec, I do need only 19

[MarkSyder]

-mtime 3|grep -v "Dec 20"

Mark Syder (like the drink but spelt different)

[Dietmar Konermann]

Well, -mtime 3 works out the difference between the current time and the file's modification time.

Assuming, your file names don't contain " Dec 19 ", this should work...

# ls -lR | grep '^-.* Dec 19 '

Best regards...
Dietmar.

[Fuad_1]

It does not work, I want a complete command to find files of specific date and copy them to other dir.

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi,

there is a slight chance to get the creation date, however no way of being sure with:
ls -lc
This shows the last modification of the inode, so if ther was no chmod or so, then this reflects the creation time.

ls -lcR | grep ' Dec 19 ' | xargs -I{} -n1 cp -p "{}" /dir/

greetings,

Michael

[Robert-Jan Goossens]

Hi,

# find /dir -exec ls -l {} \; | grep "Dec 19" |awk '{ print $9 }' | while read LINE do
cp /$LINE /dir
done

RJ

[MarkSyder]

Have you tried Robert-Jan's solution from early on in this thread? I haven't tried it, but it looks as if it should work.

Two points: you should replace the first occurrence of /dir with the directory where the search is to start and the second one with the directory you want the files copied to. If you want to keep ownership, group, and permissions, use cp -p.

Mark Syder (like the drink but spelt different)

[Robert-Jan Goossens]

Marc + Fuad,

The first does not work, the second one will work if you change the search directory and the destination directory.

Regards,
Robert-Jan

[Bakos György]

A litle bit offtopic:
What is when I want to do something (delete, copy...) with the files before(acces time, modify...) dec 20

This selects dec 20
find -mtime 3|grep -v "Dec 20"

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi,

calcualte the number of days and then
find ./ -mtime +days

greetings,

michael

[Robert-Jan Goossens]

Bakos,
You mean older then 3 days ?

# find . -mtime +3 -exec ls -l {} ;\

copy change ls -l --> "cp -r" or "mv" or "rm -r"

Ps please start your own thread (:-)

[Fuad_1]

not older than 3 days, I want files ony in specific date. All the above does not work, please help.

[Robert-Jan Goossens]

Fuad,

# find . /tmp -exec ls -l | grep "Dec 19" | awk '{ print $9 }' | while read LINE
do
cp $LINE /DESTANATION_DIR
done

do not use copy and paste !!!!
Robert-Jan

[Bakos György]

Sorry Fuad, that I destruct your topic.
This is the last question(corrective):

I want select the files before dec 20, and do something with them.

[Bakos György]

I have read the answers I think it will work thanks.