Question

In my folder there are many pdf files with date-timestamp format such as shown in the last.
I would like to keep the latest file for the day and delete the rest for that day. How can I do in Python ?

2012-07-13-15-13-27_1342167207.pdf
2012-07-13-15-18-22_1342167502.pdf
2012-07-13-15-18-33_1342167513.pdf
2012-07-23-14-45-12_1343029512.pdf
2012-07-23-14-56-48_1343030208.pdf
2012-07-23-16-03-45_1343034225.pdf
2012-07-23-16-04-23_1343034263.pdf
2012-07-26-07-27-19_1343262439.pdf
2012-07-26-07-33-27_1343262807.pdf
2012-07-26-07-51-59_1343263919.pdf
2012-07-26-22-38-30_1343317110.pdf
2012-07-26-22-38-54_1343317134.pdf
2012-07-27-10-43-27_1343360607.pdf
2012-07-27-10-58-40_1343361520.pdf
2012-07-27-11-03-19_1343361799.pdf
2012-07-27-11-04-14_1343361854.pdf

Should I use list to fill and sort out then ? Desired output is:

2012-07-13-15-18-33_1342167513.pdf
2012-07-23-16-04-23_1343034263.pdf
2012-07-26-22-38-54_1343317134.pdf
2012-07-27-11-04-14_1343361854.pdf

Thanks

Answer 1

Sort the list and delete files if the next file in the list is on the same day,

import glob
import os
files = glob.glob("*.pdf")
files.sort()

for ifl, fl in enumerate(files[:-1]):
    if files[ifl+1].startswith(fl[:10]):    #Check if next file is same day
        os.unlink(fl)                       # It is - delete current file

Edit:

As the OPs question became clearer it became evident that not just the last file of the list is required, but the latest file of each day – to achieve this I included a “same day” conditioned unlinking.