move recently created files matching a pattern from one folder to a different one

Question

I am looking for a bash script example which does the following:

I have files being written under /tmp folder

I do at the xterm prompt, ls -ltr which gives me a list of recent files such as:

abc_mytest.log
abc_runTimeFailure.scripted.log
myManager.log

I want to move (mv) the most recent ones that were written today to a new folder which is under /home/project/.

I only want to move the ones that were created in /tmp in today's date only to /home/project/

Any example that the community can share will save me time before I re-invent the wheel.

Thanks, Eric

Answer 1

With zsh:

autoload age
mv /tmp/*(.e[age today]) /home/project/

(add the D glob qualifier if you also want to move hidden files last modified today).

Note that /tmp is a temporary directory used by every user of the system including system user. It sounds like a bad idea to try moving files that may potentially not be your own (the system won't let you do it though unless you're doing it as root).

To only consider files that you own, use the U glob qualifier. You could also move only files whose name matches a given pattern like the ones that end in .log:

mv /tmp/*.log(.Ue[age today]) /home/project/

Answer 2

Read man find mv and do something like:

find /tmp -maxdepth 1 -type f -daystart -mtime 0 \
  -exec mv -t /home/project/ {} +

UNTESTED! You must test with echo mv instead of the potentially dangerous mv.