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From: bjornmu@idt.unit.no (Bj|rn Munch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: how to compare file modification time in bourne shell script
Message-ID: <1990Jul24.220136.15795@idt.unit.no>
Date: 24 Jul 90 22:01:36 GMT
References: <1990Jul23.233044.2729@silma.com>
Sender: news@idt.unit.no (Usenet news admin)
Organization: Div. of CS & T, Norwegian Institute of Technology
Lines: 27

In article <1990Jul23.233044.2729@silma.com>, aab@silma.com (Andy
Burgess) writes:
|> 
|> I need to compare the modification times of two files in a bourne shell
|> script. I would like to do this without writing C code.
|> Machine is Sparcstation 1 running SunOS 4.03c
|> 
|> Thus I need a function:
|> 
|> newer file1 file2
|> 
|> that returns 0 if file1 is newer than file2 else returns 1
|> 

I needed the same thing once, and did it this way:

  test `ls -lt file1 file2 | head -1 | grep file1`

This will not work if the name file1 is a substring of file2...

It really ought to be simpler; after all, ls *has* the information you
want, the rest is just needed to translate it.

___________________________________________________________________________
Bj|rn Munch                       | Div. of Comp. Science & Telematics,
bjornmu@idt.unit.no               | Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH),
"The Man With a Pipe in His Name" | Trondheim, Norway