1. What I'd like to be able to do is to look thought a directory containing files like:

foo.123
foo.124
foo.125
...
foo.150


2. using the name of the file, be able to move files one at a time, starting with the oldest (foo.123), and working it's way through all the files until all are processed.

So, this is what I have so far which is moving the first file fine. I'd like to know how to make it run until it has processed all the files in the directory...

#! /bin/csh
set lastfile = NULL
foreach i (`ls -t foo*`)
if ($lastfile == NULL) then
set datafile = $i
endif
set lastfile = $i
if ($lastfile != $datafile) then
mv $lastfile testdir
endif
end


any help is much appreciated.

thanks!

- GD

you can look into using the find command with the options -mtime -atime and -ctime. Here are the descriptions for each as stated in Sams Teach Yourself Shell Programming in 24 Hours.

-mtime - fines files last modified more than, exactly, or fewer than n days ago

-atime - find files last accessed more than, exactly, or fewer than n days ago.

-ctime - find files that were last changed more than, exctly, or fewer thatn n days ago.

you could probably do something like find -{c/m/a}time expression -exec mv foo new destination in a loop to accomplish this. You could also look into xarg to execute the command after you get the list of file names to move. something like find (options and parameters) | xarg mv (options and parameters) check out man for find and xarg for more info. And by the way you should have posted this in the programming section and might have gotten more reponses; however don't double post. If a moderator sees this they will probably move it to programming forum anyways.

Thank you for your help. I ended up doing the following:
foreach i (`ls abc*`)
set datafile = $i
echo $datafile
mv $datafile ../post
break
end

foreach i (`ls xyz*`)
set datafile = $i
echo $datafile
mv $datafile ../post
break
end