Feature Request: Prefer oldest/latest file

[hadmut]

Hi,

I'd like to propose a feature as command line option to keep either the oldest or latest of a set of files.

Reason:

If one, e.g., creates a daily dump of a database for a backup repository, and the database isn't changed (or a similar process, like generating a zip archive of a directory) it creates consecutives files with same content, like monday, tuesday, wednesday, ...

If one make a snapshot of this repository on tuesday, the monday file is contained in the snapshot. If rdfind then replaces monday with a hardlink to wednesday, the next snapshot will store another file, tuesday/wednesday, instead of keeping monday.

Furthermore, the file will have a creation/mtime of wednesday, and the wednesday file appears to be fresh, while in fact the data hasn't been changed since monday.

It would therefore, and in other cases like multiple downloads of documents, be very useful to always keep the oldest file and delete/replace the later ones.

In other cases it might make sense to keep just the latest dump/download.

regards

[pauldreik]

Hi! This might be useful, but a bit too niche too warrant the complexity. rdfind is more or less in maintenance mode and features like this increases the complexity.