File Find

[Mike Van Hoff]

I hope I can outline this clearly the first time. I have been asked to create a script to do the following:

Search a series of Directories that have been created withing 15 minutes of the current system time for a dynamic file name that ends in (dot)out .out.
If a file with that extension is found, search the file for the word "error".
If error is found, send an email to a data center operator.
If the word is NOT found, do nothing.
I believe I can handle items 3 and 4, but I am looking for help and suggestions in accomplishing item 1.

Thanks in Advance.

[Bill Hassell]

The find command has the ability to locate files newer than the timestamp on a reference file. Simply use touch to create a dummy (zero-length) file that is 15 minutes old, then use i

find -newer -name '*out.out'

Note that find (unlike most commands) knows about pattern matching so escape the shell's expansion using single quotes.

[Mike Van Hoff]

But that does not answer the timing issues. I do not want to research the same dir. every 15 minutes? Any suggestions on doing this?

[James A. Donovan]

"perl -le 'print scalar localtime time - 900'"

will give you the current time - 15 minutes.

...combine that with a recursive check of the time stamps of your directories, and you should be able to find any files that have been created within 15 minutes of your running the script.