BASH: How to best filter directories of files for a certain date range in the filename?

Question

Here's the picture...

Date format: Y%m%d%H%M%S% This is my filename format: file_sub1_20110501000000.txt
Directory structure:

dir/  
  sub1/  
    file_sub1_20110501003000.txt  
    file_sub1_20110501010000.txt  
    file_sub1_20110501013000.txt  
    file_sub1_20110501020000.txt  
    --more--  
  sub2/  
    file_sub2_20110501003000.txt  
    file_sub2_20110501010000.txt  
    file_sub2_20110501013000.txt  
    file_sub2_20110501020000.txt  
    --more--  
  --more--/  
    --more--.txt  

My problem is how to efficiently filter out filenames within the range where
($file_date <= $cur_date && $file_date >= $prev_date)

I was thinking to loop through each file while comparing whether the dates are within range but I find the approach too slow when I'm dealing with thousands of files.

Is there a faster way to do it?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You should be able to list all files with today's or yesterday's date in the filename using this command:

find . -iname "*`date +%Y%m%d`*" -or -iname "*`date -v -d1 +%Y%m%d`*"

Running this command from dir/ will recurse through all subdirectories.