"/usr/bin/stat: Argument list too long" error

Question

I need to get the list of files(.log/.lst) present in a directory($logfolder) whose creation date is in a specific $year and $month

stat  --format='%y %n'  $logfolder/* |
  grep "$year-$month-"|
  awk -F' ' '{print $4}'|
  grep 'log$\|lst$' > $archivepath/filesToArchive

This doesn't work when I query the command to a folder where there are too many files. I get the following error:

-bash: /usr/bin/stat: Argument list too long

Answer 1

For a funny possibility, if your find handles -newerXY, use it! For example to get the files from year 1977 and month October:

find "$logfolder" \( -name '*.log' -o -name '*.lst' \) -newermt "1977-10-01" \! -newermt "1977-10-01 +1 month"

Done!

As you already have the variables year and month it's straightforward to write as:

find "$logfolder" \( -name '*.log' -o -name '*.lst' \) -newermt "$year-$month-01" \! -newermt "$year-$month-01 +1 month"

Only one find command! amazing!

Answer 2

I would do it like this:

find "$logfolder" \( -name '*.log' -o -name '*lst' \) -printf "%TB\t%TY\t%p\n" |
     awk '$1==m && $2==y' m="$month" y="$year" | cut -f 3- 

Explanation

By grouping the two -name calls in parentheses, you can combine them with the -o (or) flag. This will make find look for either .log or .lst files. The -printf (a GNU extension) prints the file's modification month (%TB), then its modification year (%TY) and then its path (%p), with a tab (\t) between each field.

The awk simply checks that the 1st field (the month) is the same as $month and the second is the same as $year.

The cut removes the first two fields (the month and year) and prints everything from the 3rd field on.

I tested the above by creating files modified in December 2012 (and set $month to "December" and $year to 2012):

$ touch -d "December 13 2012" {a,b,c}{.lst,.log}
$ touch c.lst a.log ## c.lst and a.log now have today's modification date.
$ find $logfolder \( -name '*.log' -o -name '*lst' \) -printf "%TB\t%TY\t%p\n" |
  awk '$1==m && $2==y' m="$month" y="$year" | cut -f 3-
./b.log
./c.log
./b.lst
./a.lst

(note that it assumes file and directory names don't contain newline characters).

Answer 3

Try this:

find $logfolder -type f -exec stat --format='%y %n' "{}" + |
  grep "$year-$month-"|
  awk -F' ' '{print $4}'|
  grep 'log$\|lst$' > $archivepath/filesToArchive

Answer 4

ls -lh *.log *.lst logfolder | grep year | grep month