In this case %b matches the 3 letter month and %e is a space-padded day value matching the format of ls instead of a 0-padded day value that the default date uses. GNU date formatting is really helpful for outputting your date exactly how you need. Ls -ltr directory/ | grep '$(date +'%b %e')' Does the same thing and requires no awk print statements or conditionals. Why not just use gnu date's built in formatting instead? That said, all the ls solutions seem really cumbersome piping to awk.

It is much easier than my method.I think these ls commands are far better than using find if the additional file metrics that find (which just returns filenames) does not provide are needed. To find the oldest file in the entire root (/) file system, run: $ sudo find / -type f -printf '%T+ %p ' | sort | head -n 1Ī fellow Linux user has pointed out how to find the oldest or newest files in a directory in the comment section below. Likewise, to find the top five oldest files in a given directory, just run: $ find /home/sk/ostechnix/ -type f -printf '%T+ %p ' | sort | head -n 5 Instead, it uses the file modification date to find it.ĭownload - Free Cheat Sheet: 'Linux Command Line Cheat Sheet' Please note that Linux doesn't find the oldest file by using the file creation date. The above command returned the following output: +13:42:40.0000000000 /home/sk/ostechnix/Absolute FreeBSD_ 2nd Edition.pdfĪs you see in the above output, Absolute FreeBSD_ 2nd Edition.pdf is the oldest file in /home/sk/ostechnix/ directory. Here, -n 1 indicates only one file i.e oldest file.Īs you might already know, Explainshell helps you to find what each part of a Linux command does.

sort | head -n 1 - The sort command sorts the output and sends the output to head command to display the oldest file.

-printf '%T+ %p ' - Prints the file’s last modification date and time in separated by + symbol.

type -f - Searches only the regular files.find - Search for files in a directory hierarchy.Let us break down this command and see what each command line argument does. $ find /home/sk/ostechnix/ -type f -printf '%T+ %p ' | sort | head -n 1

Find files by date unix