Reading logs made easy with bash.

Most of the web programmers would normally look into their applications/server error logs when they find issues, indeed it's a pain when the log path is filled with directories, it's sometimes annoying to do an ls -l and look for the latest directory and then cd it, a bit better case is when one tab_completes to change directories.

It would be very easy if we could cdn as in cd to the new dir ;)

So /me tired some silly script that would make my life easier, do add it to your ~/.bash.rc if we like it!

Here is the simple script to cdn :

cdn() { 
    local file latest; 
    for file in "${1:-.}"/*; do 
        [[ $file -nt $latest ]] && latest=$file
    done; 
    printf '%s\n' "$latest"
    [[ -d $latest ]] && cd $latest || tailf $latest
} 

Usage: cdn [dir]

Digging into the code:

  • Get all the file and dirs in the specified path or consider "." as the default path  "${1:-.}"/*

  • Using file and latest local vars : if $file -nt $latest True if $file is newer than $latest (according to modification date).

  • Finally check if it's a dir or file, if file cd to it else tail it!

Hope this helps you guys, as it's helping me, happy hacking!

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