I'm trying to run some code from a script that will more or less copy the 2 oldest files from one directory to another.

 

My intent is to throw a bunch of files into a directory and have my windows machine grab them and do some processing. The reason for the two oldest was something I came up with simply because I want to limit it to two files. LOL

 

Anyways heres what I have, but I'm having issues and wondered if somebody could look at it and tell me what I'm doing wrong.

 

mv `ls -t |tail -1` /mnt/disk3/Movies/HandBrake/test

 

The problem I have is I want to run it from cron by simply droping it in the cron folder for daily, but of course its trying to run what I typed in there for that folder when I want to point it at /mnt/disk3/Movies/Handbrake/2do

 

I tried using the following

mv `ls -t  /mnt/disk3/Movies/Handbrake/2do/ |tail -1` /mnt/disk3/Movies/HandBrake/test

but it gives me a no such file or directory found

 

I can run excluding the location for ls, but its rather important. LOL

Can anybody give me a clue to what I'm doing wrong.

 

 

Simply put I want to move the two oldest files from

/mnt/disk3/Movies/Handbrake/test/

 

to

 

/mnt/disk3/Movies/Handbrake/2do/

I guess nobody else knows how to do this. LOL

Could you try:

 

mv `ls -t  /mnt/disk3/Movies/Handbrake/2do/* | tail -2` /mnt/disk3/Movies/HandBrake/test

 

Otherwise, perhaps this will work:

 

cd /mnt/disk3/Movies/Handbrake/2do && mv `ls -t | tail -2` /mnt/disk3/Movies/HandBrake/test

Heres the results from that and thank you for the help at least.

 

root@Tower:/mnt/disk3/Movies/HandBrake/2do# mv `ls -t  /mnt/disk3/Movies/Handbrake/2do/* | tail -2` /mnt/disk3/Movies/HandBrake/test

/bin/ls: cannot access /mnt/disk3/Movies/Handbrake/2do/*: No such file or directory

mv: missing destination file operand after `/mnt/disk3/Movies/HandBrake/test'

Try `mv --help' for more information.

 

root@Tower:/mnt/disk3/Movies/HandBrake/2do# cd /mnt/disk3/Movies/Handbrake/2do/ && mv `ls -t | tail -2` /mnt/disk3/Movies/HandBrake/test

-bash: cd: /mnt/disk3/Movies/Handbrake/2do/: No such file or directory

root@Tower:/mnt/disk3/Movies/HandBrake/2do#

 

I think I see the problem.

 

/mnt/disk3/Movies/Handbrake/2do/* should be /mnt/disk3/Movies/HandBrake/2do/* according to your working directory.

Wow it works. LOL

 

Damn I feel aweful stupid now. LOL

 

Thanks for the catch. I don't know why I missed that, but well it works now.

 

cd /mnt/disk3/Movies/HandBrake/2do/ && mv `ls -t | tail -2` /mnt/disk3/Movies/HandBrake/test

 

I think the first time I some how missed the && when I used the cd command myself in a little script. Now I have a million files to encode and my little windows box and a little script on my unRAID machine to make it all go smooth.