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I have two directories with files with the same name. Basically I want to replace dir1/file.txt with dir2/file.txt if the creation date of dir1/file.txt is more recent. But i think I'm missing something in the if condition.

#!/bin/bash
for i in /dir1/*; do
        nameFIRR=$(basename "$i")
        dateINPUT="$(date -r $i)"
        dateOUTPUT="$(date -r /dir2/$nameFIRR)"

        if [ $dateINPUT -ge $dateOUTPUT ];
        then
         cp -u $i /dir2/$nameFIRR
        fi
done
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  • 1
    Try using Bash's built-in -nt file test. From tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/fto.html, you should be able to drop the date shell calls, and replace your if with if [ $nameFIRR -nt /dir2/$nameFIRR ] Commented Jan 27, 2017 at 17:39
  • 3
    My point was that with cp's -u option you don't need all this! cp -u dir1/* dir2... Commented Jan 27, 2017 at 17:42
  • Note date -r and also test -nt and cp -u use the last modification time of the file(s), which may or may not be the same as creation time. Unix utilities rarely support creation time because original Unix filesystems didn't store it, and even today only some do. Commented Jan 27, 2017 at 20:04

1 Answer 1

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There are two common solutions:

  1. rsync is one:

rsync is a powerful tool with many, many options; see man rsync for details. But for a simple synopsis, the command is:

rsync [options] source destination

In your case, this should do it:

#!/bin/bash
rsync -t dir1/file.txt dir2/file.txt
  1. the 'copy' (cp) command with the -u option is another (per Stephen Kitt's comment):
#!/bin/bash
cp -u dir1/file.txt dir2/file.txt
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