What shell command might I use to open the last alphanumeric file in a directory? -
i have log files auto generated , organized in directory such: logs/laravel-2015-07-01.log logs/laravel-2015-07-02.log logs/laravel-2015-07-03.log logs/laravel-2015-07-04.log logs/laravel-2015-07-05.log i want create shell alias prints out tail of latest log file (laravel-2015-07-05.log @ moment). alias plog="tail ___________________________" what can fill in blank select latest log file? a new log file generated each day , date string pattern should apparent. server timezone files generated not same local timezone, solution i'm looking find log file latest date (not today's date). assuming these files in directory , follow strict naming format laravel-yyyy-mm-dd then can run ( in log directory ) view last log tail ls | tail -n 1 | xargs tail this uses default alphabetical sort order of ls can adjust if outside directory run : ls -d logs/* | tail -n 1 | xargs tail