Find files between two dates

Find files between two dates

I’d like to share a simple way I’ve learned to find how many files have been created between two dates, using Linux command line. The method involves find command.

Problem

Working on a project that involved the creation of a lot of KOS objects (nothing difficult, just another DICOM object), I needed a quick and easy way to find out how many files my class method created.

Solution

I knew that find command could help, so I started digging into its manual and at the end I found the right option:

 -newerXY reference
Succeeds if timestamp X of the file being considered is newer than timestamp Y of the file reference. The letters X and Y can be any of the following letters:

              a   The access time of the file reference
              B   The birth time of the file reference
              c   The inode status change time of reference
              m   The modification time of the file reference
              t   reference is interpreted directly as a time

after many trials I ended up with newermt which is newer with sub-options X=m for modification date and Y=t for literal time.

At this point my “command” was taking shape:

find -type f -name "*.dcm" -newermt 2016-04-08 ! -newermt 2016-04-09

Last thing I needed to know, was the number of files that have been created in the desired date interval and this was the easiest part of the command:

wc -l

the command used prints the newline count.

Finally:

find -type f -name "*.dcm" -newermt 2016-04-08 ! -newermt 2016-04-09 | wc

Enjoy!