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POSIXLY:

f1=/path/to/file_1 f2=/path/to/file_2 if [ -n "$(find -L "$f1" -prune -newer "$f2" -exec echo . \;)" ]; then printf '%s is newer than %s\n' "$f1" "$f2" fi 

POSIXLY:

f1=/path/to/file_1 f2=/path/to/file_2 if [ -n "$(find -L "$f1" -prune -newer "$f2")" ]; then printf '%s is newer than %s\n' "$f1" "$f2" fi 

Using absolute path to files prevent a false positive with filename contains newlines only.

In case of using relative path, then change find command to:

find -L "$f1" -prune -newer "$f2" -exec echo . \; 

POSIXLY:

f1=/path/to/file_1 f2=/path/to/file_2 if [ -n "$(find "$f1" -L -prune -newer "$f2" -exec echo . \;)" ]; then printf '%s is newer than %s\n' "$f1" "$f2" fi 

POSIXLY:

f1=/path/to/file_1 f2=/path/to/file_2 if [ -n "$(find -L "$f1" -prune -newer "$f2" -exec echo . \;)" ]; then printf '%s is newer than %s\n' "$f1" "$f2" fi 

POSIXLY:

f1=/path/to/file_1 f2=/path/to/file_2 if [ -n "$(find "$f1" -prune -newer "$f2" -exec echo . \;)" ]; then printf '%s is newer than %s\n' "$f1" "$f2" fi 

POSIXLY:

f1=/path/to/file_1 f2=/path/to/file_2 if [ -n "$(find "$f1" -L -prune -newer "$f2" -exec echo . \;)" ]; then printf '%s is newer than %s\n' "$f1" "$f2" fi