Hi Alpha-OSF-managers,
I have been asked to write a script which will identify all files
and directories which have not been "in use" for more than 90 days.
1. In pondering this, I have concluded that I don't fully
understand the meaning of mtime, atime and ctime as
options for the "find" command. I understand that
these mean "modified", "accessed", and "changed".
How do "modified" and "changed" differ from each other?
Does the first refer to content only, the other content+
permissions, ownership etc.? Or?
2.It seems that if a file is created (e.g. .cshrc for a new user)
then if that file is created but NEVER accessed, it will not
show up in the list of files with accessed time greater
than 90 days, even if it were created 1 year ago. (because
it has never been accessed?). Certainly this file has not
been "in use". What does "accessed mean?" Does "cat" access
a file; does f77 access a fortran source code which it compiles?
3. What I'd really like is an "ls" (with a -R option) which would
display access times (with a default to creation time) if no
access time exists. I have seen that stat exists as a C-callable
system routine which might provide some help. Has anyone written
a code like the modified ls I'm describing above? The problem
with the current ls is that it only displays the file modification
time and one can't really tell what the most recent "use time" of
the file was...
4. When I try find . \( -atime +90 -o -ctime +90 \) -exec ls -las {} \;
then I get a not-so-useful printout which includes lots of files
which modify dates which are recent. If I leave out -ctime then
for files which were created long ago but never accessed or
modified, then these are not listed...
Any suggestions? Any scripts or hacked commands to get this info?
5. The truly frightening part is that the person wanting this
information wants to use this in a procedure which first
presents a list of all files owned by a subgroup of users
to them for perusal, and then have me execute a script or
command which will DELETE all these files. I have tried
explain the obvious pitfalls of this plan to deaf ears. Since
I can't stop this plan, I would like to at least provide a
script whose behavior I understand and can explain clearly
so all are properly warned and will provide users ways to
touch their files to preserve files (such as
find ~homedir \( -name ".*" -o -name "*" \) -exec touch -c {} \;
I know this sounds crazy but this is happening...
chela kunasz
Received on Fri Nov 10 1995 - 19:41:07 NZDT