Possible problem with mtime switch to find

[Marcel_3]

I'm using find with the -mtime switch to delete directories containing old backup files.

The command looks like this:

find ${backup_dir} -type d -mtime 5 -exec rm -rf {} \;

This almost always works but sometimes it doesn't! For example, I have a directory with a date/time that appears to be 27-Jan-2001 in the ls -l listing but does not appear in a find -mtime 5.

Years ago I recall someting like this with IRIX but I was wondering if anyone could shed light on this with HP-UX 11

[Dan Hetzel]

Hi Marcel

-mtime +5 will work for files having been modified in more than 5 days
-mtime -5 for les than 5 days
-mtime 5 for exactly 5 days

Best regards,

Dan

[Rita C Workman]

The only difference I generally key is....
-mtime +5

Just a thought,
/rcw

[James R. Ferguson]

Marcel:

'mtime', 'atime' and 'ctime' operate on "up-to-the-minute" so your 5-day window should match a 24-hour one.

...JRF...