I'm trying to create a simple script to list the 16 most recent folders created in a directory on my nas machine as a way to display the most recent movies added to my collection.
the script i am using at the moment is:
#!/bin/bash
rm -f /volume1/new-movies/*
IFS=$'\x0A'
fresh=$(ls -1ct /volume1/movies | head -16)
for folder in $fresh
do
file=$(find "/volume1/movies/$folder" -maxdepth 1 -type f)
movie=$(basename "$file")
ln -s "$file" "/volume1/new-movies/$movie"
done
ls -1 /volume1/new-movies
which is OK (the movies folder will only ever contain folders). My problem is this is sorted by the file/folders modification time rather than the creation time.
the filesystem is ext4 and should support a birth time but i have had no luck accessing it.
scott@pandora scripts $ stat /volume1/movies/example/
File: '/volume1/movies/example/'
Size: 4096 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 directory
Device: 902h/2306d Inode: 373800961 Links: 2
Access: (0755/drwxr-xr-x) Uid: ( 1028/ scott) Gid: ( 100/ users)
Access: 2013-04-09 13:39:53.243991684 +1000
Modify: 2013-04-06 13:26:00.965998952 +1100
Change: 2013-04-09 11:46:23.280991727 +1000
Birth: -
however, samba seems to have no issue displaying the correct creation date/time. is there a way to access the same information from bash? or am i going to have to program something in python/other to do what i need by accessing smb directly and listing each folder with the creation date?
scott@pandora scripts $ smbclient \\\\localhost\\movies\\
Enter scott's password:
Domain=[EXAMPLENET] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 3.6.9]
smb: \> allinfo "example"
altname: E06KNE~A
create_time: Fri Jun 18 17:23:49 2010 EST
access_time: Tue Apr 9 13:39:53 2013 EST
write_time: Sat Apr 6 13:26:01 2013 EST
change_time: Sat Apr 6 13:26:01 2013 EST
attributes: DA (30)
smb: \> quit
edit: see my below answer for my final solution to this issue.
After some fiddling I have come up with a solution which appears to work a little better than trying to rely on ls -lc. here's the full script i am now using.
#!/usr/bin/env sh
# remove the existing symbolic links-
rm -f /volume1/new-movies/*
# retrieve the folder listing from the smbclient (the date used is 'modified'
# which appears closer to 'creation' than anything else)
folders=$(smbclient \\\\localhost\\movies -N -c ls 2>/dev/null)
# format the output for better sorting. eg
# folder DA 0 Mon 2 Oct 12:23:00 2012
# 2012-Oct-2 12:23:00 "folder"
fmt1=$(echo "$folders" | sed -E 's/^ (.*\))\s+DA.* (\w+)\s+([0-9]{1,2})\s+([0-9:]{8})\s+([0-9]{4})$/\5-\2-\3 \4 "\1"/')
# change the month names to numeric representations and pad single digit
# dates to 2 characters. eg.
# 2012-Oct-2 12:23:00 "folder"
# 2012-10-02 12:23:00 "folder"
fmt2=$(echo -e "$fmt1" |sed 's/-Jan-/-01-/;s/-Feb-/-02-/;s/-Mar-/-03-/;s/-Apr-/-04-/;s/-May-/-05-/;s/-Jun-/-06-/;s/-Jul-/-07-/;s/-Aug-/-08-/;s/-Sep-/-09-/;s/-Oct-/-10-/;s/-Nov-/-11-/;s/-Dec-/-12-/;s/-\([0-9]\) /-0\1 /')
# sort the folders in reverse order
sortd=$(echo -e "$fmt2" | sort -r)
# grab the last 16. (16 items per page are displayed on the wd tv streaming)
latest=$(echo -e "$sortd" | head -16 | cut -d\" -f2)
# loop through each folder using new line rather than dft. space
IFS=$'\x0A'
for l in $latest
do
# find the movie file in the directory, dont look in subdirectories and
# only match movie files. skips subtitles, bonus features, etc.
f=$(find "/volume1/movies/$l" -maxdepth 1 -type f \
\( -iname \*.avi -o \
-iname \*.mp4 -o \
-iname \*.mkv -o \
-iname \*.mpg -o \
-iname \*.ts -o \
-iname \*.m4v \
\) -exec echo "{}" \;)
# grab just the filename
b=$(basename "$f")
# link the file $f to the new movie folder with just the base name.
ln -s "$f" "/volume1/new-movies/$b"
done
IFS=
ls -1 /volume1/new-movies