I am trying to compare todays date with the last modified date from a file.
DATE=$(date +"%F")
LASTMOD=$(stat $i -c %y);
LASTMOD_DATE=$(cut -d' ' -f1 <<<"$LASTMOD")
if [ "$LASTMOD_DATE" -ge "$DATE" ]; then
printf "%-19s | " "$DATE"
else
printf "%-19s | " "NO RECENT MOD"
fi
Currently this does not compare them properly and I think it's because LASTMOD_DATE is not actually a datetime so I get the error: "integer expression expected".
You can use the timestamp format date +%s and the -r option.
-r, --reference=FILE
display the last modification time of FILE
like
if [ $(date +%s -r file) -ge $(date +%s) ]; then
# do something
fi
The best way to compare points of time (dates) is in seconds (since Epoch).
Changing the %y to %Y for stat will give the modification date of the file in seconds:
fileModifiedOn=$(stat $i -c %Y)
Today's date could be read either with (GNU) date with the format %s:
todayDate=$(date +'%s')
or, in Bash 5.0, with the variable EPOCHSECONDS:
todayDate=$EPOCHSECONDS
or, in older bash, with a (builtin) printf format:
todayDate=$(printf '%(%s)T')
Then, it is just a matter of a simple integer comparison:
if [[ "$fileModifiedOn" -gt "$todayDate" ]] then
result=$todayDate
else
result="NO RECENT MOD"
fi
printf "%-19s | " "$result"