Hi gurus, I know this is a piece of cake for you guys but I'm just a novice and I'm trying to figure out how to read a list of files contained within a text file a the list them by date.
The files are in diferent directories and what I need is to order then compared by date to each other even if they are in diferent directories.

This is It:
cat list.txt
dir1/file1
dir1/file2
dir2/file3
dir2/file4

ls -l /dir1
-rw-r--r-- 1 usr grp 649 Oct 11 15:40 file1
-rw-r--r-- 1 usr grp 11781 Oct 13 15:40 file2

ls -l /dir2
-rw-r--r-- 1 usr grp 222 Oct 12 15:40 file3
-rw-r--r-- 1 usr grp 345 Oct 16 15:40 file4

what I need is to read list.txt, list the files and order them by date like this:
-rw-r--r-- 1 usr grp 649 Oct 11 15:40 file1
-rw-r--r-- 1 usr grp 222 Oct 12 15:40 file3
-rw-r--r-- 1 usr grp 11781 Oct 13 15:40 file2
-rw-r--r-- 1 usr grp 345 Oct 16 15:40 file4


I've been reading and I think I have to use "while read" or awk's getline to read the file line by line.

Any help will be really appreciated.
Thanks a lot Guys.

By the way, xargs ls -ltr <list.txt won't work. There are more than 2k files in the list.txt file.

Try this:

#!/bin/ksh
cat /dev/null >/tmp/list.tmp
for f in $(cat list.txt)
do
ls -l $f|awk '{m=int(index("JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDe c",$6)/3)+1;
if (index($8,":") > 0) {y=2003; h=$8;} else {y=2002; h="00:00";}
printf "%4s%3s-%2s-%s %s\n",y,m,$7,h,$0;}' >>/tmp/list.tmp
done
sort -o newList.txt /tmp/list.tmp

Thanks a lot man, it isn´t working but it´s a good start point. I´ll try to modify it and work on it.

But it does work, look at this:

$ cat m0
#!/bin/ksh
cat /dev/null >/tmp/list.tmp
for f in $(cat list.txt)
do
ls -l $f
ls -l $f|awk '{m=int(index("JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDe c",$6)/3)+1;
if (index($8,":") > 0) {y=2003; h=$8;} else {y=$8; h="00:00";}
printf "%4s%3s-%2s-%s %s\n",y,m,$7,h,fn;}' fn=$f >>/tmp/list.tmp
done
sort -o newList.txt /tmp/list.tmp
cat newList.txt
$#---EXECUTION:
$ m0
-rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 2664 Oct 20 05:30 /usr/production/mktg/tmp/s
ynch_1_3_ALL.tmp
-rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 800213 Jun 18 12:03 /usr/production/mktg/tmp/s
ol.lst
-rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 152 Oct 2 07:03 /usr/production/mktg/tmp/e
d_email_1050520018315.msg
-rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 343 Oct 15 18:25 /usr/production/mktg/dat/O
rigFile.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 42761 Oct 4 2001 /usr/production/mktg/dat/a
rp_011002.csv
-rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 54514 Mar 28 2002 /usr/production/mktg/dat/A
RPS_FY03.csv
-rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 1095967 Oct 29 2002 /usr/production/mktg/dat/p
rism_codes.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 122160128 Sep 15 11:22 /usr/production/mktg/dat
/expDM030915.dmp
#--- SORTED OUTPUT:
2001 10- 4-00:00 /usr/production/mktg/dat/arp_011002.csv
2002 3-28-00:00 /usr/production/mktg/dat/ARPS_FY03.csv
2002 10-29-00:00 /usr/production/mktg/dat/prism_codes.dat

2003 6-18-12:03 /usr/production/mktg/tmp/sol.lst
2003 9-15-11:22 /usr/production/mktg/dat/expDM030915.dmp
2003 10- 2-07:03 /usr/production/mktg/tmp/ed_email_1050520018315.msg
2003 10-15-18:25 /usr/production/mktg/dat/OrigFile.txt
2003 10-20-05:30 /usr/production/mktg/tmp/synch_1_3_ALL.tmp
$

This is what I'm getting:
more newList.txt
2002 1- 6-00:00 -rw-rw-r-- 1 nobody user 302844 Jan 6 2003 /data1/kmz2000/hzbf04341.w3
2002 1- 6-00:00 -rw-rw-r-- 1 nobody user 350572 Jan 6 2003 /data1/kmz2000/hzbf04341.w1
2002 1-10-00:00 -rw-rw-r-- 1 nobody user 457772 Jan 10 2003 /data1/kmz2000/hzbf05634.w1
2002 1-10-00:00 -rw-rw-r-- 1 nobody user 627236 Jan 10 2003 /data1/kmz2000/hzbf05634.w3
2002 1-14-00:00 -rwxrwxrwx 1 mjcorrea user 31080 Jan 14 2003 /data1/kmz2000/copicceb.dts
2002 1-14-00:00 -rw-rw-r-- 1 nobody user 1831214 Jan 14 2003 /data1/kmz2000/FALLAS_FINALES_KMZ

The first problem is with those files from 2001 and before, so I need to figure out how to fix that.

more list.tmp
2002 5-30-00:00 -rw-rw-r-- 1 ow03 user 470912 May 30 2001 /data1/bacab3d/BTPKS.dts
2002 5-30-00:00 -rw-rw-r-- 1 ow03 user 24100 May 30 2001 /data1/bacab3d/BTPKS.mcf
2002 5-30-00:00 -rw-rw-r-- 1 ow03 user 3080632 May 30 2001 /data1/bacab3d/BTPKSMTS.dts

The bug has been corrected in the second script with this statement:

... else {y=$8; h="00:00";}


Try it again!



PS: Unfortunately for previous years you loose the 'hours' timestamp.

Ok, now it works fine. You r good with awk. Thank You Very Much.