<<Anchor(faq3)>>
== How can I sort or compare files based on some metadata attribute (newest / oldest modification time, size, etc)? ==
The tempting solution is to use `ls` to output sorted filenames and operate on the results using e.g. `awk`. As usual, the `ls` approach [[ParsingLs|cannot be made robust]] and should never be used in scripts due in part to the possibility of arbitrary characters (including newlines) present in filenames. Therefore, we need some other way to compare file metadata.

The most common requirements are to get the most or least recently modified, or largest or smallest files in a directory. Bash and all ksh variants can compare ''modification times'' (mtime) using the `-nt` and `-ot` operators of the `conditional expression` compound command:
{{{#!highlight bash
unset -v latest
for file in "$dir"/*; do
  [[ $file -nt $latest ]] && latest=$file
done
}}}

Or to find the oldest:
{{{#!highlight bash
unset -v oldest
for file in "$dir"/*; do
  [[ -z $oldest || $file -ot $oldest ]] && oldest=$file
done
}}}

Keep in mind that ''mtime'' on directories is that of the most recently added, removed, or renamed file in that directory. Also note that `-nt` and `-ot` are not specified by [[http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/test.html#tag_20_128|POSIX test]], but many shells such as [[Bashism|dash]] include them anyway. No bourne-like shell has analogous operators for comparing by ''atime'' or ''ctime'', so one would need external utilities for that; however, it's nearly impossible to either produce output which can be safely parsed, or ''handle'' said output in a shell without using nonstandard features on both ends.

If the sorting criteria are different from "oldest or newest file by mtime", then GNU `find` and GNU `sort` may be used together to produce a sorted list of filenames + timestamps, delimited by NUL characters.  This will operate recursively by default. [[UsingFind|GNU find's]] `-maxdepth` operator can limit the search depth to 1 directory if needed. Here are a few possibilities, which can be modified as necessary to use ''atime'' or ''ctime'', or to sort in reverse order:

{{{#!highlight bash
# GNU find + GNU sort (To the precision possible on the given OS, but returns only one result)
IFS= read -r -d '' latest \
  < <(find "$dir" -type f -printf '%T@ %p\0' | sort -znr)
latest=${latest#* }   # remove timestamp + space
}}}

{{{#!highlight bash
# GNU find (To the nearest 1s, using "find -printf" format (%Ts).)
while IFS= read -rd '' time; do
  IFS= read -rd '' 'latest[time]'
done < <(find "$dir" -type f -printf '%Ts\0%p\0')
latest=${latest[-1]}
}}}

One disadvantage to these approaches is that the entire list is sorted, whereas simply iterating through the list to find the minimum or maximum timestamp (assuming we want just one file) would be faster.  However, depending on the size of the job, the algorithmic disadvantage of sorting may be negligible in comparison to the overhead of using a shell.

{{{#!highlight bash
# GNU find
unset -v latest time
while IFS= read -r -d '' line; do
  t=${line%% *} t=${t%.*}   # truncate fractional seconds
  ((t > time)) && { latest=${line#* } time=$t; }
done < <(find "$dir" -type f -printf '%T@ %p\0')
}}}

Similar usage patterns work well on many kinds of filesystem meta-data. [[http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/snipplets/largestfile|This example]] gets the largest file in each subdirectory recursively. This is a common pattern for performing a calculation on a collection of files in each directory. 

Readers who are asking this question in order to rotate their log files may wish to look into `logrotate(1)` instead, if their operating system provides it.

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CategoryShell