Listing files sorted by creation time

[Yash]

Hi,

I would like to do something with every text file from a directory,
with the latest created file taken first.
What is the best way to do this. I am looking for something like:

for my $file ( <something> glob("/mydir/*.txt") )
{
#my code
}

The glob will create an array of filenames. How do I make sure the
list comes in time order , latest fist?

Thanks

 

[John W. Krahn]

I would like to do something with every text file from a directory,
with the latest created file taken first.
What is the best way to do this. I am looking for something like:

for my $file ( <something> glob("/mydir/*.txt") )
{
#my code
}

The glob will create an array of filenames. How do I make sure the
list comes in time order , latest fist?

Of course *nix doesn't store the creation time anywhere but you can use
the time that the file was last maodified:

for my $file ( map $_->[1],
sort { $a->[0] <=> $b->[0] }
map [ -M, $_ ],
glob '/mydir/*.txt' )
{
#my code
}


John

 

[John W. Krahn]

On unix, you can do:

my @files = `cd /mydir;ls -t *.txt`;

^^^^^^^^^
You are changing the directory in a different process which means that
the list of file names returned will not be available from the current
directory and you didn't chomp the list so every file name will have a
newline at the end.

for my $file ( @files ) {
# your code
}

John

 

[Eric Bohlman]

Of course *nix doesn't store the creation time anywhere but you can use
the time that the file was last maodified:

Would that be the date of the file's last Cultural Revolution?

 

[Tad McClellan]

with the latest created file taken first.

^^^^^^^

Many filesystems (such as *nix) do not record the creation time.

Perl gives you access to 3 timestamps (perldoc -f stat), none
of them can be counted on to be the creation time.

The other followups I've seen in this thread use "modified"
where your spec said "created".

 

[John W. Krahn]

On unix, you can do:

my @files = `cd /mydir;ls -t *.txt`;

^^^^^^^^^
You are changing the directory in a different process which means that
the list of file names returned will not be available from the current
directory and you didn't chomp the list so every file name will have a
newline at the end.

True, the above just gives you the file names. If you want the full
path name for the files you can do instead:

my @files = `ls -t /mydir/*.txt'[/QUOTE]

I think you meant:

chomp( my @files = `ls -t /mydir/*.txt` );



John