Posted by Gordon Burditt on 02/18/07 18:44

>I have been presented with the task of getting the last file from
>a linux directory when the files are of the form:
>nnnnnn-xxxxxxx-.ext
>
>where nnnnnn are 6 numeric digits and xxxxxx is variable a/n data.

Define "last". Files do not have an intrinsic ordering.

>I could read the entire directory in an sort, but I hope there is
>an easier way.

You may have to read the entire directory in, get the timestamp
(which one? There are several.) for each file, and sort based on
most recent timestamp.

You also might want to avoid files that don't match the given filename
pattern. Files with names matching *.core tend to appear even when
not intended.

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