CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rubyunixfile-organization
X_Trust
X_Trust

Reputation: 817

How do I organize files by creation date?

How would I sort a directory into files created before and after any given time and date?

I need to make two lists, one of files before, and the other of files after, a certain date/time.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1862

Answers (5)

hsafarya
hsafarya

Reputation: 1053

Dir["dir_path/*"].sort_by { |p| File::Stat.new(p).birthtime } works on macos

Upvotes: 2

tantrix
tantrix

Reputation: 1287

The creation time with Ruby on OS X is not available through the File API. One way is shelling out to stat(1). Not pretty but does at least return the creation (a.k.a birth) time:

def birth(file)
  Time.at(`stat -f%B "#{file}"`.chomp.to_i)
end

Dir.entries('.').sort_by {|f| birth f }

Or use the partition answer given.

Here's a detailed post on a common misconception: ctime does not mean creation time.

Upvotes: 3

Stefan
Stefan

Reputation: 114218

You can use Enumerable#partition:

files = Dir.entries('.')
time = Time.parse("2013-09-01")
before, after = files.partition { |file| File.ctime(file) < time }

As the Tin Man noted, ctime is not the only file time method. Maybe atime or mtime is a better choice.

Upvotes: 1

Scotty C.
Scotty C.

Reputation: 744

Here's my answer. You can sort the files in a directory by their modified time with something along these lines using File.new('filename').mtime

files_hash = Hash.new

Dir.foreach('.') do |file_name|
  modified_time = File.new(file_name).mtime
  unless file_name == '.' || file_name == '..' then
    files_hash[file_name] = modified_time
  end
end

# Sort the hash.
files_hash = files_hash.sort_by {|key, value| value}

files_hash.each do |name, time|
  puts "#{name} was modified at #{time}"
end

Upvotes: 0

Sachin Singh
Sachin Singh

Reputation: 7225

ctime

Returns the change time for stat (that is, the time directory information about the file was changed, not the file itself).

Note that on Windows (NTFS), returns creation time (birth time).

http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-2.0.0/File/Stat.html#method-i-ctime

so you can do something like this.

Dir.entries('.').sort {|a,b| File.stat(a).ctime <=> File.stat(b).ctime}

Upvotes: 0

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