filestat is a command line tool which prints file status information such as modification and access times. You can think of it as an infinatly customizable version of ls. It is also particularly useful in shell scripts to rename files to names based on their creation time.
Move all log files to a history directory. Rename them to the date of last modification of the log file
#!/bin/sh for logfile in /var/log/* ; do cmd=`filestat ´mv %N /admin/loghistory%N/%M[%Y%m%d]´ $logfile` $cmd done
Print file names followed by the number of days since they were created.
filestat '%N %.M#%d#' *
The latest package filestat-2.0.1.tar.Z
An older version: filestat-2.0.tar.Z
Even older: filestat-1.0.tar.Z
Note: The manual page below is produced using man2html. There are several formatting gliches which are unavoidable at this time. A correctly formatted manual page is in the file filestat.txt in the package.
filestat - prints file information in an easy to use fash-
ion
SYNOPSIS
filestat [-g] file ...
DESCRIPTION
Filestat provides a convenient way of printing file infor-
mation so that it can be used in shell scripts.
OPTIONS
-g Print times in GMT rather than local time.
FORMAT DIRECTIVES
The string is a printf-like string based on the
options of the stat command. Directives control which
members of the stat structure to print.
%b 512 byte blocks allocated
%v device
%g gid
%i inode
%l link count
%k file kind (see stat(2) for more information)
%K size in KB
%o mode (in octal)
%N file name
%p permissions (in octal)
%r rdev
%s size
%u uid
%A[fmt]
access time using fmt as a subformat
%C[fmt]
status change time using fmt as a subformat
%M[fmt]
modification time using fmt as a subformat
mat for the strftime(3) subroutine. The strftime
directives are reproduced here for convenience only.
%a locale's abbreviated weekday name
%A locale's full weekday name
%b locale's abbreviated month name
%B locale's full month name
%c locale's appropriate date and time represen-
tation
%C locale's date and time rep. as produced by
date(1)
%d day of month ( 01 - 31 )
%D date as %m/%d/%y
%e day of month (1-31)
%h locale's abbreviated month name.
%H hour ( 00 - 23 )
%I hour ( 01 - 12 )
%j day number of year ( 001 - 366 )
%m month number ( 01 - 12 )
%M minute ( 00 - 59 )
%n same as new-line
%p locale's equivalent of either AM or PM
%r time as %I:%M:%S [AM|PM]
%R time as %H:%M
%S seconds ( 00 - 61 ), allows for leap seconds
%t same as a tab
%T time as %H:%M:%S
%U week of year ( 00 - 53 ), Sunday is first day
of week 1
day of week 1
%x locale's appropriate date representation
%X locale's appropriate time representation
%y year within century ( 00 - 99 )
%Y year as ccyy ( e.g. 1986)
%Z time zone name or no characters if no time
zone exists
%A#fmt# %C#fmt# %M#fmt#
alternate way of specifying subformat. Easier to
quote in scripts.
%{+}A %{+}C %{+}M followed by neither [ or #
Use default subformat of "%Y%m%d". If + modifier is
added, then use %Y%m%d%H%M%S.
%.A#fmt# %.C#fmt# %.M#fmt#
As above, but using time relative to the current
time. Only the %Y, %d, %H, %M and %S sub-formats
make sense when using relative time.
%d Same as %M[%d].
%H Same as %M[%H].
%j Same as %M[%j].
%m Same as %M[%m].
%-M Same as %M[%M].
%S Same as %M[%S].
%{-}T Same as %M[%H:%M:%S]. If - modifier is used, then
same as %M[%H%M%S].
%w Same as %M[%w].
%y Same as %M[%y].
%Y Same as %M[%Y].
SEE ALSO
stat(1), stat(2), strftime(3)
EXAMPLES
filestat '%M#%Y%m%d %N' *
produce a listing of files and their age in days
filestat '%N %.A#%d' *
produce a listing of files and the number of days
ago they were last accessed.
cp foo.c filestat %N-%M#%Y%m%d' foo.c`
copy foo.c to foo.c-YYYYMMDD
AUTHOR
Tony Aiuto <tony.aiuto@gmail.com>
Comments and money to tony.aiuto@gmail.com