Question

I’ve found the following line of code in a script. Could someone explain me what does this following line of code means?

Basically, the purpose of this line is find a set of files to archive. Since I am not familiar with bash scripts, it is difficult for me to understand this line of code.

_filelist=`cd ${_path}; find . -type f -mtime ${ARCHIVE_DELAY} -name "${_filename}" -not -name "${_ignore_filename}" -not -name "${_ignore_filename2}"`

Answer 1

Let’s break it down:

cd ${_path} : changes to the directory stored in the ${_path} variable

find is used to find files based on the following criteria:

• . : look in the current directory and recurse through all
  sub-directories
• -type f: look for regular files only (not directories)
• -mtime ${ARCHIVE_DELAY} : look for files last modified
  ${ARCHIVE_DELAY}*24 hours ago
• -name "${_filename}": look for files which have name matching ${_filename}
• -not -name "${_ignore_filename}" : do not find files which have
  name matching ${_ignore_filename}
• -not -name "${_ignore_filename2}" : do not find files which have
  name matching ${_ignore_filename2}

All the files found are stored in a variable called _filelist.