1. The problem statement, all variables and given/known data:

Problem Statement for project:

When an account is created on the CS Unix network, a

The first * represents a user account within the 5 undergrad directories. I need to figure out how to use -newer to be in the same user account that the above command is in at the time is compares it to the -newer file.

Here is the command that I tried using but I don't think it worked.

$ find ./undergrad[1-5]/*/public_html/index.html -newer ./*/.profile

I am trying to compare the index.html file of a user to their .profile file so see if it has been modified since the account was created. However, I think that newer is looking at the .profile of any directory from the current directory.

Texas Tech University
Lubbock TX
USA
Dr. Pyeatt
CS 3352


Thanks for the help.

Hm, I'd tackle the problem another way. finds -newer option only accepts 1 file as a reference, so you'd have to loop through all user directories, comparing against that users .profile, which is not very efficient. Also, what if a user changed his/her .profile after changing the index.html?

If the public_html directory is created automatically, so is the index.html, and this means there's probably a template (skeleton) for it. diff against that, and you'll get those files that have been changed.

ok, that is a much better idea, I forgot that you can change your .profile. But where would that typicaly be loacted on a unix server. Would it a a file that is unique to each user or would it be stored some where else? I tried using find skel from /etc directory and came up with these results:

$ find skel
skel
skel/.profile
skel/local.cshrc
skel/local.login
skel/local.profile

I meant the template for the index.html file. The problems if your comparing the time against the /etc/skel/.profile file are

• Since most users probably were created after this file, all users will appear to have changed their homepage
• If the administrator changes the skeleton .profile, no user will appear to have changed his homepage

So, if possible, try to find out where the default homepage was copied from, and compare against that content.

Ok I will try and find it if I can, and if not I will ask my network admin. Thanks for the help.

ok so I relized that we have like 10 unix servers, and each of the files that I am comparing to was created at different times. So I need to find a way to use diff on a know unedited index.html, and get the file path instead of the normal diff out put. Any ideas? thanks