Shell script:How to delete based on created date ?

[Lakshmipathi]

Hi all,
I'm here is my problem :
How delete all files from a directory,which are created before a specific date?
For example:[user provides the no.of days = 5]
Delete all files from /home/oss directory except,
those files created which are in the last 5 days.

Any thoughts?

[Franklin52]

Try the find command with the -mtime option:

find /home/oss -mtime +5 -exec rm -f {} \;

Try this first to see if you get the correct files:

find /home/oss -mtime +5 -exec ls -l {} \;

Regards

[Lakshmipathi]

Thanks for your help.

find /home/oss -mtime 5 -exec ls -l {} \;

provides me files which are modifed 5 days ago.

But,Let me explain my problem bit more clearly:

I have 7 files created between Feb 7 to 13:

-rw-r--r--  1 oss oss 6770 Feb  13 11:25 access_log.someext
-rw-r--r--  1 oss oss 6770 Feb  12 11:25 access_log.something
-rw-r--r--  1 oss oss 6770 Feb  11 11:25  access_log.cf
-rw-r--r--  1 oss oss 6770 Feb  10 11:25  access_log.ad
-rw-r--r--  1 oss oss 6770 Feb  9 11:25  access_log.aw
-rw-r--r--  1 oss oss 6770 Feb  8 11:25  access_log.zsd
-rw-r--r--  1 oss oss 6770 Feb  7 11:25  access_log.xzs

How to delete files which are created before 3 days.
ie.delete all files which are created before feb-11.


Delete following files :

-rw-r--r--  1 oss oss 6770 Feb  10 11:25  access_log.ad
-rw-r--r--  1 oss oss 6770 Feb  9 11:25  access_log.aw
-rw-r--r--  1 oss oss 6770 Feb  8 11:25  access_log.zsd
-rw-r--r--  1 oss oss 6770 Feb  7 11:25  access_log.xzs

Finally the directory has following files:
These files are created between Feb 11 to 13.

-rw-r--r--  1 oss oss 6770 Feb  13 11:25 access_log.someext
-rw-r--r--  1 oss oss 6770 Feb  12 11:25 access_log.something
-rw-r--r--  1 oss oss 6770 Feb  11 11:25  access_log.cf

Thanks.

[Lakshmipathi]

Sorry i missed out '+'

find . -mtime +5 -exec ls -l {} \;

It's working . Thanks franklin

[Franklin52]

You forgot the "+" sign. From the manpage of find:

-atime n
File was last accessed n*24 hours ago. When find figures out
how many 24-hour periods ago the file was last accessed, any
fractional part is ignored, so to match -atime +1, a file has to
have been accessed at least two days ago.

-mtime n
File's data was last modified n*24 hours ago. See the comments
for -atime to understand how rounding affects the interpretation
of file modification times.

n : exact n*24 hours ago.
-n : under n*24 hours.
+n : over n*24 hours.

Regards

[Lakshmipathi]

yes.I agree
Thanks for your help.