home | O'Reilly's CD bookshelfs | FreeBSD | Linux | Cisco | Cisco Exam  


UNIX Power Tools

UNIX Power ToolsSearch this book
Previous: 16.26 Finding Text Files with findtext Chapter 16
Where Did I Put That?
Next: 16.28 oldlinks: Find Unconnected Symbolic Links
 

16.27 newer: Print the Name of the Newest File

Here's a quick alias that figures out which file in a group is the newest:



-d
 

alias newer "ls -dt \!* | head -1"

csh_init
sh_init
If your system doesn't have a head ( 25.20 ) command, use sed 1q instead.

For example, let's say that you have two files named plan.v1 and and plan.v2 . If you're like me, you (often) edit the wrong version by mistake - and then, a few hours later, can't remember what you did. You can use this alias to figure out which file you changed most recently:



*
 

% 

newer plan.v*


plan.v1

Oops. I edited the wrong version by mistake. I could also have used backquotes ( 9.16 ) to handle this in one step:

% 

emacs `newer plan.*`

- ML


Previous: 16.26 Finding Text Files with findtext UNIX Power Tools Next: 16.28 oldlinks: Find Unconnected Symbolic Links
16.26 Finding Text Files with findtext Book Index 16.28 oldlinks: Find Unconnected Symbolic Links

The UNIX CD Bookshelf Navigation The UNIX CD BookshelfUNIX Power ToolsUNIX in a NutshellLearning the vi Editorsed & awkLearning the Korn ShellLearning the UNIX Operating System