Hi Anon

Here's another approach

#!perl -sl
use strict;
use warnings FATAL => 'all';

my $PATH = "c:/code/test";
my $processed_hash_ref;

chdir $PATH;              # filetests using relative path
opendir DH, "." or die "Couldn't open directory $PATH: $!";

while ($_ = readdir (DH)) {
    next unless -f $_ 
        && m/^\d_\d{4}_\d\d?_\d\d?_\d\d?_\d\d?_\d\d?_table/i;
    my $fname = join ('_', (split /_/)[ 7..11 ]);
    
    # already seen a more recent file with the name we're
    # planning to use? skip current file
    next if defined $processed_hash_ref->{$fname} && 
        $processed_hash_ref->{$fname}->{AGE} < -M _;

    # file safe to be renamed... for now
    $processed_hash_ref->{$fname}->{OLDNAME} = $_;
    $processed_hash_ref->{$fname}->{AGE}     = -M _;
}
closedir DH;

# now proceed to rename items
map { 
    print "[!] rename $processed_hash_ref->{$_}->{OLDNAME} to $_";
    rename $processed_hash_ref->{$_}->{OLDNAME}, $_;
} keys %$processed_hash_ref;

[download]

Cheers
Shadow

In reply to Re: Batch file renaming - on identical name, keep only most recent file, based on dates by shadowsong
in thread Batch file renaming - on identical name, keep only most recent file, based on dates by Anonymous Monk

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