Re: Fwd: suggestion to handle stock Fedora 8 logrotate changed extension on archived log files

Bjorn L. wrote:
> Would this work?
> 
>       @TempLogFileList = sort{
>          (stat($a))[9] <=> (stat($b))[9];
>         }(glob($dir . $ReadConfigValues[$i]));
> 
> where stat returns an array, the ninth index of which is the modified time.



I considered stat as well.  As long as file timestamps are correct this 
works fine (and generally this is the case, esp. for automated, standard 
rotations).  For any log data that is archived, let say in bulk to 
remote storage, mtime is not useful, and using sequence-based filenames 
is more reliable.  (I keep log data for a long time off line, and 
haven't worried amount the file's mtimes, and use suffixes instead).

This is one of those hidden gotchas, that has gone undetected, likely 
aided by somewhat vague documented behavior :

   --archives
   Each  log-file-group has basic logfiles (i.e. /var/log/messages)
   as well as archives (i.e. /var/log/messages.?  or  /var/log/mes-
   sages.?.gz).   When  used  with  "--range all", this option will
   make Logwatch search through the archives  in  addition  to  the
   regular  logfiles.   For  other values of --range, Logwatch will
   search the appropriate archived logs.

as well as rarity of use (not many I suspect use --range all for example).

 > Then the issue of which files to sort on is left to the config file,
 > which is currently messages.* for the "messages" logfile, or cron.*
 > for the cron logfile.

Well, not really - the config file has no control over mtime. :-)

MrC

> 

> 
> Also, a question:  is the new format only for archived log files, or 
> does it also apply to the current log file?
>