Shell script to calculate time since last file modification

[ABS_1]

Does anyone have a shell script that will output the time (in seconds) that has elapsed since the last modification of a file? Basically, I need to email if a file has not been modified since x seconds.

[Sanjay_6]

Hi,

A coupld of ways listed here,

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=105260

Hope this helps.

regds

[Hein van den Heuvel]

Why not turn it around.

'touch -t' a reference file with that target time.

next 'find -newer ...'


hth,
Hein.

[Rodney Hills · Accepted solution]

Using perl, -M returns age of a file as a number of days and partial day. So you could do the following-

perl -e 'print 24*60*60*(-M $ARGV[0])' afile

HTH

-- Rod Hills

[ABS_1]

Hi ROdney,

Thanks for the one liner. That will do the trick. By the way, doing a man on Perl does not explain the -M option, where would this option be described (new to Perl...). Thanks so much!

[Rodney Hills]

If you have a full install of perl, then you could do a "man perlfunc" for perl functions.

Usually stored under /opt/perl.

HTH

-- Rod Hills

[ABS_1]

man on perlfunc comes back with nothing. I guess I don't have the full version installed. Anywhere else (perhaps online)?

[Sanjay_6]

Hi,

Try perlmonks.org

http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node=perlman%3Aperlfunc%3Acategorical

also

http://www.rt.com/man/perlfunc.1.html

Hope this helps.

Regds