Hi, I'm a newbie to scripting in Unix and I need help with the following. I want to write a script that would retrieve the creation date/time of a file and compare that to the current date/time to determine how old the file has been created. I have no idea how to do this. Please help me... Thank you in advance.

How you will find creation date/time of a file. It is not necessary that the time you get with "ls -l" is the creation date/time. If you want to compare that "ls -l"'s date/time with current date/time then it can be done. Let us know.

Hi, I too am a 'newbie' at scripting. This is a problem that I have been stuck on for a while. I have a script that is creating files from another system, and adding them into a specific directory. I would like to compare the creation date of a file with the current system date and delete it if it is older than 2 weeks old. I am not sure how this can be done, or if it can be done. Has anyone got any ideas??? Thanx

Hi, in order to compare date file with the current date, i use this find [path] -daystart -[a/c/m]time [+/-]n -atime n File was last accessed n*24 hours ago. -ctime n File's status was last changed n*24 hours ago. -mtime n File's data was last modified n*24 hours ago + == > - == < n whitout sign === only this day before the current date You can use it with redirection, or as a kind of filter usefull for remove file rm -f $(find blabla), and in one command you have a solution Sorry for my bad english, i'am just a little french

Hi, you can simply use the `test' command for your problem, it will return zero (true) if file1 is newer than file2 (therefore `-nt') and will return > 0 if not: $> test file1 -nt file2 $> echo $? 1 $> You can use it in combination with an `if'-statement as well, good for batch scripting: if [ file1 -nt file2 ] then echo "file1 is newer" fi Or on the shell directly, optionally in a different notation: $> test file1 -nt file2 && echo "file1 is newer" $> or, other way round: $> test file1 -nt file2 || echo "file1 is not newer" file1 is not newer $> Hope, I could give you a short introduction. try `man test' on your shell to get more info about the `test' command. Maybe you'll find a good documentation about `if' / `&&' / `||' and return code handling somewhere on the net. Cheers, Manuel