compare file's date bash

Question

I\'m working on a tiny dropbox-like bash script, how can I compare the dates of 2 files and replace the old one(s) with the new one without using rsync is t

Answer 1

Here is a POSIX solution:

find -name file2 -newer file1

Answer 2

Or even shorter and nicer, look at man stat:

stat -c %y file

Answer 3

You can compare file modification times with test, using -nt (newer than) and -ot (older than) operators:

if [ "$file1" -ot "$file2" ]; then
    cp -f "$file2" "$file1"
fi

Answer 4

how about

 stat file|awk -F': ' '/Modify: /{print $2}'