A csh Alias to List Recently Changed Files (Unix Power Tools, 3rd Edition)

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8.8. A csh Alias to List Recently Changed Files

Looking for a recently changed file? Not sure of the name? Trying to do this in a directory with lots of files? Try the lr alias:

alias lr "ls -lagFqt \!* | head"

This alias takes advantage of the -t option (Section 8.3) to ls, so that recent files can float to the top of the listing. !* is the csh syntax for "put all of the arguments to the alias here." (We have to escape the exclamation point to keep it from being interpreted when we set the alias.) head (Section 12.12) shows just the first ten lines.

A simple lr in my home directory gives me:

bermuda:home/dansmith :-) lr
total 1616
-rw-------  1 dansmith staff      445092 Oct  7 20:11 .mush256
-rw-r--r--  1 dansmith staff        1762 Oct  7 20:11 .history
drwxr-xr-x 30 dansmith staff        1024 Oct  7 12:59 text/
-rw-------  1 dansmith staff      201389 Oct  7 12:42 .record
drwxr-xr-x 31 dansmith staff        1024 Oct  4 09:41 src/
-rw-r--r--  1 dansmith staff        4284 Oct  4 09:02 .mushrc
   ...

You can also give a wildcarded pattern to narrow the search. For example, here's the command to show me the dot files that have changed lately:

bermuda:home/dansmith :-) lr .??*
-rw-------  1 dansmith staff      445092 Oct  7 20:11 .mush256
-rw-r--r--  1 dansmith staff        1762 Oct  7 20:11 .history
-rw-------  1 dansmith staff      201389 Oct  7 12:42 .record
-rw-r--r--  1 dansmith staff        4284 Oct  4 09:02 .mushrc
   ...

-- DS


8.7. Some GNU ls Features		8.9. Showing Hidden Files with ls -A and -a