How can I move or delete files created in certain time range?

Solution 1:

With stat (assumes all files in the same directory)

stat -c '%y %n' * | grep -E ' (22:4[5-9]|22:5|23:|0[0-4]:)' | cut -d ' ' -f 4 | xargs mv -t $dirForRemovedFiles

• this assumes that in the output of stat isn't depend on locale (it doesn't seem to be...), otherwise force the locale to "C".
• this assume that all the files are in the same DST segment.
• note the space between the quote and the parenthesis, this is what makes the regexp match only the beginning of the time stamp.
• for safety, the command above doesn't delete anything, it just moves the files to a directory where you'll issue a rm * once you have asserted that you aren't missing anything.
• if you are paranoid, use grep -E '^.{10} (22:4[5-9]|22:5|23:|0[0-4]:)' to avoid false hits.

Solution 2:

This semi-single line will print the "nightly" files:

( \
llimit=$((60*5+0)); \
ulimit=$((60*22+45)); \
find -type f -exec bash -c '\
hm=`stat -c "%y" "$0" | cut -c 12-16`; \
t=$((60*10#`echo $hm | cut -c 1-2`+10#`echo $hm | cut -c 4-5`)); \
test \( $t -lt $1 \) -o \( $t -gt $2 \)' \
{} $llimit $ulimit \; \
-print \
)

Sub-lines explained:

1. Starts a subshell to make variables local.
2. Calculates the lower limit in minutes past midnight.
3. Calculates the upper limit.
4. For every file a separate bash is executed; it will do the arithmetic.
5. Extracts mtime as HH:MM.
6. Converts HH:MM to a value as minutes past midnight.
7. Compares this value with precalculated limits.
8. These are arguments to the inner bash; inside, they are referred to as $0, $1, $2.
9. Prints the path iff the previous test returns true.
10. Ends the subshell.

Some remarks:

• -exec can act as a test in find invocation. This is hardly obvious, yet very powerful. In this case the test is true when the final part of the inner bash command line (i.e. test) returns true (i.e. its exit status is 0).
• Bash arithmetic ($((…))) parses 01 or so as an octal number, 08 and 09 are invalid octal numbers. That's why we need to use 10# to ensure that all numbers extracted from stat output are interpreted as decimal.
• I used -lt and -gt in test. Use -le and/or -ge if they suit you better.
• To remove files replace -print with -delete (or use them together: -print -delete).

• To move files to a single directory replace -print with -print0 and build a pipe like this:

  ( … find … -print0 ) | xargs -0r mv -t /target/directory/