Help with UNIX shell script?

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I am new to UNIX and was wondering if any of you would be willing to help me write a shell script?
the script must be able to:

1. give a long listing,
2. or any number of arguments,
3. one screenful at a time
4. by last modification time,
5. all files and only files, but not other object types

here's what I have so far (it isn't much!)

#!/bin/bash

ls -la | more

I'm confused where to go next!


Any tips on good UNIX resources would also be much appreciated.

Thanks!

With ls ... -t will sort by modification time (most recent first)

See here for more details: http://linux.die.net/man/1/ls

Not sure you can skip file types using ls alone ... but one trick might be to pipe the output through grep like this:

ls -F | grep -v '/$ | less

grep -v strips out any line that matches the pattern (in this case, where the line ends with a forward slash (the $ sign indicates the end of a line). By using -F with ls you get a character appended to the line that describes the file type.

If you only want one filetype, then just use grep without the -v:

eg ls -F | grep '/' | less will just list the subdirectories.

Play around with these options (and grep) and see what you can do.

PS: try using "less" instead of "more". Just type "man less" and read the description. It is "more" with extra features.

and you might want to try this:

ls -ltF | grep -v '[*/=>@|]$' | less

It means: list long details of all files ordered by most recently modified, marking the file type with a trailing character; then from the output strip out any line that ends with a "filetype character" (see ls -F); then paginate and display using 'less'

You can always insert any command line arguments after the -F inside your script ... like this:

ls -ltF $@ | etc etc

The '$@' means "all command line arguments when the script is called"

If you want to list files and only files. No directories. Without ascending into any dirs, you could use the find command in conjunction with prune and specify the type using the f option for file.

find . ! -name . -prune -type d

It will replicate the ls -a command without printing directories.

if you want to display a page at a time use with with the find command

find . ! -name . -prune -type d | less

I'm not exactly sure what your really after. Maybe you could explain a bit better. Sorry.

That should do what you want.

If you want reverse order, go with:

Basically I need a script that lists all files, omitting directories and that organizes when they were most recently modified.

Something like this, or am I missing something?

If you want just the date and file name:



I'm not sure what you mean by "or any number of arguments.


This is a short but useful intro:

http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide

I've just realised, I think you want all the files sorted by modified time, and the above only sorts within directories. Is the following what you want? It will only work if you use a date format that sorts lexicographically. I think it's a bit more complex otherwise.