How to compare mtime of symbolic links in bash?

Question

In bash, one can test whether file1 is older than file2:

  if [[ file1 -ot file2 ]]; then
    ...
  fi

If file1 or file2 (or both) are symbolic links, I want files compared by mtime of symbolic link itself, not the file it points to (i.e. I want bash not to follow symbolic links).

Is it even possible without using an external program? In any case, what is the best way to do it.

You have to use an external program like `stat`. – chepner Mar 15 '18 at 18:24 — chepner, Mar 15 '18 at 18:24

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 15 '18 at 20:49

#Compares modification dates on files (or links for that matter)
fname1=f1.txt
fname2=f2.txt

file1=$(date +%s -d "$(stat $fname1 | grep Modify | awk '{print $2" "$3}')")
file2=$(date +%s -d "$(stat $fname2 | grep Modify | awk '{print $2" "$3}')")

if [ $file1 -gt $file2 ];then
    echo $fname1 is newer than $fname1
else
    echo $fname1 is older than $fname2
fi

How to compare mtime of symbolic links in bash?

1 Answers1