Getting previous file name

[John Machin]

Hitesh wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a small script here that goes to inside dir and sorts the file
> by create date. I can return the create date but I don't know how to
> find the name of that file...
> I need file that is not latest but was created before the last file.
> Any hints... I am newbiw python dude and still trying to figure out lot
> of 'stuff'..
>
>
> import os, time, sys
> from stat import *

Lose that, and use ".st_ctime" instead of "[ST_CTIME]" below

>
> def walktree(path):

This function name is rather misleading. The function examines only the
entries in the nominated path. If any of those entries are directories,
it doesn't examine their contents.

>     test1 = []
>     for f in os.listdir(path):
>             filename = os.path.join(path, f)

os.listdir() gives you directories etc as well as files. Import
os.path, and add something like this:

        if not os.path.isfile(filename):
            print "*** Not a file:", repr(filename)
            continue

>             create_date_sces = os.stat(filename)[ST_CTIME]

Do you mean "secs" rather than "sces"?

>             create_date = time.strftime("%Y%m%d%H%M%S",
> time.localtime(create_date_sces))
>             print create_date, " ....." , f
>             test1.append(create_date)

Answer to your main question: change that to
test1.append((create_date, filename))
and see what happens.

>     test1.sort()

If there is any chance that multiple files can be created inside 1
second, you have a problem -- even turning on float results by using
os.stat_float_times(True) (and changing "[ST_CTIME]" to ".st_ctime")
doesn't help; the Windows result appears to be no finer than 1 second
granularity. The pywin32 package may provide a solution.

>     print test1
>     return test1[-2]
>
>
> if __name__ == '__main__':
> 	path = '\\\\srv12\\c$\\backup\\my_folder\\'

(1) Use raw strings. (2) You don't need the '\' on the end.
E.g.
    path = r'\\srv12\c$\backup\my_folder'

> 	prev_file = walktree(path)
> 	print "Previous back file is ", prev_file
> 
> 

Cheers,
John