modification time

[chocolateace]

I accidentally copied bout 90GB worth of data without the old modification/creation times.
I can't recopy the files so I am trying to write a script that will just change the new files to have the old modification/creation dates. I am pretty new to bash scripting.

Here is what I have but it's not really working...

Is there a better way to do this or can anyone tell me what is wrong with my script?

#!/bin/bash -
##timetouching

newfolder=`/ki/2newdate`
oldfolder=`/ki/1olddate`

for i in `ls $oldfolder`; do
        for p in `ls $newfolder`; do
                touch -r $i -ma $p
        done
done

[Franklin52]

Hi,

Use double quotes instead of backticks here:

newfolder="/ki/2newdate"
oldfolder="/ki/1olddate"

But wait, the second loop isn't properly, I'll try to check it out.

Regards

[Franklin52]

OK, this must do the job:

#!/bin/sh

newfolder="/ki/2newdate"
oldfolder="/ki/1olddate"

cd $oldfolder

for i in *; do
    ls $newfolder/"$i" > /dev/null 2>&1
    if [ $? -eq 0 ]
    then
	touch -r $oldfolder/"$i" -ma $newfolder/"$i"
    else
	echo $newfolder/"$i" not exists
    fi
done

Regards

[tpl]

welcome to the forum

Here's another way, supposing you have the old files
available--otherwise you'd not know their dates:

drwxrwsr-x 2 tpl tpl 4096 2007-05-24 18:34 first
drwxrwsr-x 2 tpl tpl 4096 2007-05-24 18:34 fourth
drwxrwsr-x 2 tpl tpl 4096 2007-05-24 18:34 second
drwxrwsr-x 2 tpl tpl 4096 2007-05-24 18:34 third

In that directory,

ls -l | awk '{print $6$7*$8}' | sed 's/-//g;s/://g' >data

gives a file "data" like this: <date><time>*<filename>

200705241834*first
200705241834*fourth
200705241834*second
200705241834*third

the date-time string is in the correct form for "touch." Now

awk 'BEGIN { FS = "*"} {print "touch -t "$1" "$2}' <data >change

gives the file "change" containing the time-changing commands:

touch -t 200705241834 first
touch -t 200705241834 fourth
touch -t 200705241834 second
touch -t 200705241834 third

so now move "change" to the directory where the copies are
and in that directory "sh change"

I assume no '-'s or ':'s in the filenames. If such there be,
then instead of "sed" use "cut" to make the file "data."

[chocolateace]

These are great for one to one folder matching thanks but I have like 90Gb of files inside folders so the script needs to work recursively
I need to only change files from a specific date because the user has been working on the files and doesn't want me to change the newer files. It seems like mtime could accomplish this.

Also, the user has poorly named files with spaces and wierd characters in the names so it's a bit more complex than I thought it was going to be.

Do you think find would work for recursive trawling? I am not sure how to do a double find to sync the old folder file with the new file.

#!/bin/sh

newfolder="/ki/2newdate"
oldfolder="/ki/1olddate"

cd $oldfolder

for i in *; do
    ls $newfolder/"$i" > /dev/null 2>&1
    if [ $? -eq 0 ]
    then
	find $newfolder -mtime 25 -name "$i" -exec touch -r $oldfolder/"$i" -ma {} \; 
    else
	echo $newfolder/"$i" not exists
    fi
done