(tar.info.gz) after

Info Catalog (tar.info.gz) transform (tar.info.gz) Choosing (tar.info.gz) recurse
 
 6.8 Operating Only on New Files
 ===============================
 
 The '--after-date=DATE' ('--newer=DATE', '-N DATE') option causes 'tar'
 to only work on files whose data modification or status change times are
 newer than the DATE given.  If DATE starts with '/' or '.', it is taken
 to be a file name; the data modification time of that file is used as
 the date.  If you use this option when creating or appending to an
 archive, the archive will only include new files.  If you use
 '--after-date' when extracting an archive, 'tar' will only extract files
 newer than the DATE you specify.
 
    If you only want 'tar' to make the date comparison based on
 modification of the file's data (rather than status changes), then use
 the '--newer-mtime=DATE' option.
 
    You may use these options with any operation.  Note that these
 options differ from the '--update' ('-u') operation in that they allow
 you to specify a particular date against which 'tar' can compare when
 deciding whether or not to archive the files.
 
 '--after-date=DATE'
 '--newer=DATE'
 '-N DATE'
      Only store files newer than DATE.
 
      Acts on files only if their data modification or status change
      times are later than DATE.  Use in conjunction with any operation.
 
      If DATE starts with '/' or '.', it is taken to be a file name; the
      data modification time of that file is used as the date.
 
 '--newer-mtime=DATE'
      Acts like '--after-date', but only looks at data modification
      times.
 
    These options limit 'tar' to operate only on files which have been
 modified after the date specified.  A file's status is considered to
 have changed if its contents have been modified, or if its owner,
 permissions, and so forth, have been changed.  (For more information on
 how to specify a date, see  Date input formats; remember that the
 entire date argument must be quoted if it contains any spaces.)
 
    Gurus would say that '--after-date' tests both the data modification
 time ('mtime', the time the contents of the file were last modified) and
 the status change time ('ctime', the time the file's status was last
 changed: owner, permissions, etc.) fields, while '--newer-mtime' tests
 only the 'mtime' field.
 
    To be precise, '--after-date' checks _both_ 'mtime' and 'ctime' and
 processes the file if either one is more recent than DATE, while
 '--newer-mtime' only checks 'mtime' and disregards 'ctime'.  Neither
 does it use 'atime' (the last time the contents of the file were looked
 at).
 
    Date specifiers can have embedded spaces.  Because of this, you may
 need to quote date arguments to keep the shell from parsing them as
 separate arguments.  For example, the following command will add to the
 archive all the files modified less than two days ago:
 
      $ tar -cf foo.tar --newer-mtime '2 days ago'
 
 verbose tutorial::) GNU 'tar' will try to convert the specified date
 back to its textual representation and compare that with the one given
 with the option.  If the two dates differ, 'tar' will print a warning
 saying what date it will use.  This is to help user ensure he is using
 the right date.  For example:
 
      $ tar -c -f archive.tar --after-date='10 days ago' .
      tar: Option --after-date: Treating date `10 days ago' as 2006-06-11
      13:19:37.232434
 
      *Please Note:* '--after-date' and '--newer-mtime' should not be
      used for incremental backups.   Incremental Dumps, for
      proper way of creating incremental backups.
 
Info Catalog (tar.info.gz) transform (tar.info.gz) Choosing (tar.info.gz) recurse
automatically generated by info2html