how to compare file modification time in bourne shell script

[Leo de Wit]

In article <1990Jul23.233044.2729 at silma.com> aab at silma.UUCP () writes:
|
|I need to compare the modification times of two files in a bourne shell
|script. I would like to do this without writing C code.
|Machine is Sparcstation 1 running SunOS 4.03c
|
|Thus I need a function:
|
|newer file1 file2
|
|that returns 0 if file1 is newer than file2 else returns 1
|
|Can it be done?

This is simple if you let make decide:

case `echo "file1 : file2; :"| make -f -` in
:) echo file1 is older than file2;;
*) echo file1 is newer than file2;;
esac

(this does not exactly return 0 or 1, but you get the intent).

On the other hand, many scripts I encounter that have to decide whether
file1 is newer than file2 are of type makefile; you might want to check
whether your problem fits this category.

    Leo.