Retain recent files

eg. an application produces a backup file every night. You only want to keep the last 5 files.

Pipe the output of the following script (retain_recent.py) into a sh, eg in a cronjob:

/YOURPATH/retain_recent.py  | bash 

Python code that produces 'rm fileX' statements:

#list the files according to a pattern, except for the N most recent files
import os,sys,time

fnList=[]

d='/../confluence_data/backups/'
for f in os.listdir( d ):
    (mode, ino, dev, nlink, uid, gid, size, atime, mtime, ctime) = os.stat(d+"/"+f)
    s='%s|%s/%s|%s' % ( mtime, d, f, time.ctime(mtime))
    #print s
    fnList.append(s)

# retain the 5 most recent files:
nd=len(fnList)-5

c=0
for s in sorted(fnList):
    (mt,fn,hd)=s.split('|')
    c+=1
    if (c>=nd):
        print '#keeping %s (%s)' % ( fn, hd )
    else:
        print 'rm -v %s   #deleting (%s)' % ( fn, hd )