Problem description

Often swim in the ocean of Linux files, often need to find all the files after a certain time. Maybe you're packing them, or maybe you're just checking.

The question is, what do you do if you want to write a script find-newer and put it on the server?

target

With a command like this, you can find all files in. / WP content directory after 19:00 on January 27, 2018!

find-newer 201801271900 ./wp-content -type f

preparation

1. A Shell environment
2. A folder with many files

Problem solving process

Execute the following command to create an empty script called find newer

touch /usr/local/bin/find-newer

Make scripts executable

chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/find-newer

Edit it, copy the content of the script below and save it.

/usr/local/bin/find-newer

#!/bin/bash

function the_help() {
  cat <<EOF

USAGE
    $0 TIMESTAMP FIND_OPTS

OPTIONS
    TIMESTAMP   [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.SS]
    FIND_OPTS   OPTIONS of find command, except -newer

EXAMPLES
    $0 201801182100 . -type f
    tar cf files-newer-20180118T2100.tar \$($0 201801182100 . -type f | tr '\\n' ' ')

EOF
  exit 1
}

function find_newer() {
  local ts=$1; shift
  local ts_file=/tmp/$ts.ts
  touch -t "$ts" $ts_file || the_help
  find "$@" -newer $ts_file
  rm $ts_file
}

find_newer "$@"

want a go

xiaoqiang@remotehost:/var/www/html$ find-newer 201801271900 ./wp-content -type f
./wp-content/themes/startupkit/functions.php
./wp-content/themes/startupkit/index.php
./wp-content/themes/startupkit/acf/acf-zh.json
./wp-content/themes/startupkit/acf/acf-en.json

If you want to see help, just type find newer.

xiaoqiang@remotehost:/var/www/html$ find-newer
touch: out of range or illegal time specification: [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.SS]

USAGE
    /usr/local/bin/find-newer TIMESTAMP FIND_OPTS

OPTIONS
    TIMESTAMP   [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.SS]
    FIND_OPTS   OPTIONS of find command, except -newer

EXAMPLES
    /usr/local/bin/find-newer 201801182100 . -type f
    tar cf files-newer-20180118T2100.tar $(/usr/local/bin/find-newer 201801182100 . -type f | tr '\n' ' ')

Principle of interpretation

Create a file with a specified timestamp first

touch -t TIMESTAMP TIMESTAMP_FILE

Using this timestamp file as a reference, use the - newer timestamp file of the find command to specify that the file to be found is newer than timestamp file.

find SOMEWHERE -newer TIMESTAMP_FILE

More

Uh, uh, uh