To put it bluntly, my script writing skills suck. Therefore, I am
attempting to solicit someone who can assist me.

Prerequisites:

1)    FreeBSD 5.4
2)    Bash 3.16(1)
3)    Perl 5.8.7
4)    Php 5.5
5)    Ruby

The above are all installed on my system.

I am running DADA Mail to send out a different announcement nightly.
Presently I have to hard code in the location of each message to be
sent. DADA offers the ability to send the same file ad-infinitum if
desired.

I have created a directory where all of the messages are stored that
are to be distributed by DADA Mail. I have given them simple date
names; i.e., 11-01-05.txt, 11-02-05.txt, etc. These are obviously the
dates that they are to be sent out on. I also have a file named
2bSent in the same directory. I move the next file to be sent to this
file. That accomplished the deletion of the old sent file as well as
removing the file I just move from the directory.

My problem is that I do not know how to write a script that I can run
from CRON on a daily basis that will accomplish this for me
automatically. I have tried using the find command as well as the sort
command, but I do not know how to get the first file moved to the new
file location. Basically, I have given up.

I should also mention, that the script should check to see if there
are any new files, and if not, just exit. I usually upload a months
supply at a time. I might also add, that the server for this program
is located in my home, so I have complete access to it.

I could probably explain this better if someone is interested in
working with me in this endeavor.

-- 
Ciao

The lazy man's way tp pick the first file is to use "ls" which by
default sorts filenames.  Combine that with a date format
"2005-12-31.txt" and you'll have the first file picked by "ls -1 |
head -1".

If I understood the question properly this little bit of Perl may do what you want.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

# change to the directory we need
#  (Obviously put that proper name in place of the one here.)
chdir("/tmp/ciao") or die("could not change directory");

# Discover the date in the expected format.
# (Check these fields are in the order you want.)
#
($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = ();
($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime($^T);
$mon += 1;
$year -= 100;
$fname=sprintf("%02d-%02d-%02d.txt", $mon, $mday, $year);

# Rename that file - if it exists.
#
if (-f $fname) {
    printf("Renaming %s\n", $fname);
    rename($fname,"2bSent");
}
exit(0);

I tried using your Perl program example, but without success. The Perl
program was properly installed and I set the permissions to 755 as
required. However, nothing happens. The file does run, but no actions
are taken.

I created a test directory to try the program out in. I loaded it with
some sample files. This is the directory structure after issuing 'ls
-1'.

11-11-05.htm
11-12-05.htm
11-13-05.htm
11-14-05.txt
11-15-05.txt
11-16-05.txt
11-17-05.txt
11-18-05.txt
11-19-05.txt
11-20-05.txt
11-21-05.txt
11-22-05.txt
11-23-05.txt
11-24-05.txt
11-25-05.txt
11-26-05.txt
11-27-05.txt

I named the Perl program 'file_4_dada.sh'. After running the program,
nothing has changed in the directory.

I did change the 'chdir' line to reflect the proper directory to work
on. In fact, at one point I deliberately inserted an incorrect path to
see what would happen. The program popped up with a warning message
and died. Therefore, I am sure the program is running, but not working
as desired.

I really do appreciate your help. Since I do not have a very good
understanding of Perl, I am not able to correct the problem.

The script as it currently is constructs a filename using TODAY'S DATE
in the order month,day,year and appends ".txt" to it.   I was not
expecting any of the files to be managed to end in ".htm" as that
didn't appear in the question (unless you expected that interpretation
of the word "etc").

Given the file listing you show I expect that script to first rename a
file on the 14th of November.

This new version tries both ".txt" and ".htm" (but not in the same
execution) and also reports failure showing what file it was looking
for.


#!/usr/bin/perl -w

# change to the directory we need
#  (Obviously put that proper name in place of the one here.)
chdir("/tmp/ciao") or die("could not change directory");

# Discover the date in the expected format.
# (Check these fields are in the order you want.)
#
($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = ();
($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime($^T);
$mon += 1;
$year -= 100;

$fname=sprintf("%02d-%02d-%02d.txt", $mon, $mday, $year);
# Rename that TXT file - if it exists.
#
if (-f $fname) {
    printf("Renaming %s\n", $fname);
    rename($fname,"2bSent");
    exit(0);
}


$fname=sprintf("%02d-%02d-%02d.htm", $mon, $mday, $year);
# Rename that HTM file - if it exists.
#
if (-f $fname) {
    printf("Renaming %s\n", $fname);
    rename($fname,"2bSent");
    exit(0);
}

printf("File %s not found (tried both .txt and .htm extensions)\n",  $fname);
exit(0);

It took me a few minutes to figure out how your script worked, but I
finally figured it out. I am assuming that it gets the present date,
and then looks for a file with that date format with either an 'htm'
or a 'txt' extension. I was not actually expecting the program to be
that precise, however that is even better than I had asked for. Now I
do not have to worry about synchronizing the files with the actual
date, or accidentally running it twice in succession. This program
will ignore any old files, which is excellent.

No doubt you are aware that it is not possible to insert 'use strict;'
into the program. It will fail to compile. Not a big deal for me
though. I just needed a simple program that would make life a little
easier for me.

Anyway, I guess you came up with the answer. I am not sure how you go
about being paid since this is the first time I have used this
service. I do plan to use it again in the future though.

Thank You!

There's nothing to pay (except the half dollar to google) only the
approved researchers (with names in blue clickable links) can give
offical answers.

"not possible to insert 'use strict;'"
Well you could if you added a package name to all the variables
(except for the time variable $^T)
e.g. change $sec to $'sec etc throughout the script.
I tend to think that's not worth the effort.