there are 3 files but want to list out the filename if less than a.20090120

a.20090119
a.20090120
a.20090121

One way would be to use awk:

I can understand wanting to see the last file, or the last x files, but why would you want this type of functionality in a program? (just curious)
Mike

Probably really just a date kind of thing. In this case it might be better to either use the file creation date, or use that part of the file name that represents a date and use date functions?

I understand it's a date thing. I just can't see why you'd have a program to pull all the files since a set date - that seems to be more something you'd do by hand when the need arose. There's loads of possible solutions but I just wanted to know whether this was a one off task, in which case I'd just use ls and tail, or it's for a program and I'd probably either use awk or the find command where files are dated earlier than a given file. I just wanted to know why he was after the functionality

thanks mike_bike_kite ...

i have output files in every office days(e.g excluding holidays .. etc) which is named in x.yyyymmdd (where yyyymmdd is processing date).

Hence, i would like to return the file of a previous day of a specific date requested by user ...

Then LKBrwn_DBA's solution seems perfect.

You could also just change the question to the user so they end up supplying the correct day to search for - the current method just seems to be creating work for yourself.