Linux: cat matching files in date order?

Question

I have a few files in a directory with names similar to

• _system1.log
• _system2.log
• _system3.log
• other.log

but they are not created in that order.

Is there a simple, non-hardcoded, way to cat the files starting with the underscore in date order?

Answer 1

Quick 'n' dirty:

cat `ls -t _system*.log`

Safer:

ls -1t _system*.log | xargs -d'\n' cat

Answer 2

Use ls:

ls -1t | xargs cat