On Mon, 2007-08-06 at 17:40 -0400, Robert Moskowitz wrote: > I had at one point copied a large number of files between drives and did > not use the -p and thus the timestamps were all set to the date of the copy. > > I did not catch this, and deleted the source. So I 'lived' with it and > have since changed many files. > > Well, yesterday I found a good backup of many of those files and I want > to restore them to their proper dates. > > cp -p -u is exactly the opposite of what I want. I want to copy only if > the source files have an earlier date than the destination files. I suggest "man find" and focus on the (new to me) versions of "newer". I think, IIUC, that one of those tests will meet your needs. When the test passes, an appropriate "exec ..." may do what you want. > > The source files are just an old copy on another drive that I found when > cleaning up things... > <snip> HTH -- Bill