Kinda complicated tar based on modified date

Splitting the task into chunks, using your input of

drwxrwxr-x 2 per per 4096 nov 3 12:46 launch01 -rw-rw-r-- 1 per per 0 nov 3 12:47 camera112.log -rw-rw-r-- 1 per per 0 nov 3 12:47 motors121.log -rw-rw-r-- 1 per per 0 nov 3 12:47 lidar111.log drwxrwxr-x 2 per per 4096 nov 3 12:49 launch02 -rw-rw-r-- 1 per per 0 nov 3 12:49 motors122.log -rw-rw-r-- 1 per per 0 nov 3 12:49 lidar211.log -rw-rw-r-- 1 per per 0 nov 3 12:49 camera113.log 

Create the "ordered" list of the filenames only

Use either one of these:

ls -lrt | tr -s ' ' | cut -d' ' -f9 ls -lrt | awk '{print $9}' 

gives:

launch01 camera112.log motors121.log lidar111.log launch02 motors122.log lidar211.log camera113.log 

Farm the list off into sections

Modifying this answer to Split one file into multiple files based on delimiter, create a file called awk_pattern containing the following:

BEGIN{ fn = "part1.txt"; n = 1 } { if (substr($0,1,6) == "launch") { close (fn) n++ fn = "part" n ".txt" } print > fn } 

and then running

ls -lrt | awk '{print $9}' | awk -f awk_pattern 

gives the required output:

part1.txt

launch01 

and then

part2.txt

launch01 camera112.log motors121.log lidar111.log 

part3.txt

launch02 motors122.log lidar211.log camera113.log 

Although the first file (part1.txt) should be discarded as it contains only one line...

rm part1.txt 

tar the contents of each part

From 6.3 Reading Names from a File

tar -c -v -z -T part2.txt -f part2.tgz 

Looping through the tar files

for part_file in $(ls part*) do tar_file = ${part_file%.*} # tar_file = basename ${part_file} .txt tar -c -v -z -T ${part_file} -f ${tar_file}.tgz done 

This should give

part1.tgz part2.tgz part3.tgz 

Again, part1.tgz should be discarded:

rm part1.tgz 

Putting it all together

#!/bin/bash ls -lrt | awk '{print $9}' | awk -f awk_pattern for part_file in $(ls part*) do tar_file = ${part_file%.*} tar -c -v -z -T ${part_file} -f ${tar_file}.tgz done rm part1.txt rm part1.tgz 

As just one script (incorporating the awk pattern)

#!/bin/bash ls -lrt | awk '{print $9}' | awk 'BEGIN{ fn = "part1.txt"; n = 1 } { if (substr($0,1,6) == "launch") { close (fn) n++ fn = "part" n ".txt" } print > fn }' for part_file in $(ls part*) do tar_file = ${part_file%.*} tar -c -v -z -T ${part_file} -f ${tar_file}.tgz done rm part1.txt rm part1.tgz 

This (hopefully) should work, although I have only tested the first two steps, i.e. up to the tar part, as I don't have the files to tarball up.

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Possible improvements:

1. Post-processing: Remove the part*.txt files (rm part*.txt)

2. Post-processing: Remove the log files once tar'd up (rm *.log)

3. Post-processing: Remove the directories once tar'd up (rm -R -- */)

   See this answer to How do I remove all sub-directories from within a directory?.

4. Prevent awk from producing the useless part1.txt file

5. Save the tar files elsewhere (... -f ${tar_path}/${tar_file}.tgz)

6. Don't use intermediary part*.txt files.