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Full Discussion: mtime vs ctime
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers mtime vs ctime Post 57480 by zazzybob on Friday 29th of October 2004 06:02:12 AM
Old 10-29-2004
ctime refers to changes made to the file's inode (such as changing permissions, etc). mtime refers to changes to the data within the file. So cnewer will use a reference files inode change time for the comparision, whereas newer will use a reference files data modification time.

Some manual pages are very vague and don't make a clear distinction, so your confusion is understandable!

FYI, there's also atime, which refers to file access time. Also, there is, unfortunately (and to the best of my knowledge), no way of finding file creation time through an inode.

Cheers
ZB
 

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crontab(5)							File Formats Manual							crontab(5)

Name
       crontab - clock daemon table file

Syntax
       /usr/lib/crontab

Description
       The  command  executes  at  specified dates and times according to the instructions in the file. The file consists of lines with six fields
       each.  The format for a line is as follows:

	      minute hour day month weekday command

       The following list defines each field in the line:

       minute (0-59)  The exact minute that the command sequence executes.

       hour (0-23)    The hour of the day that the command sequence executes.

       day (1-31)     The day of the month that the command sequence executes.

       month (1-12)   The month of the year that the command sequence executes.

       weekday (1-7)  The day of the week that the command sequence executes. Monday = 1, Tuesday = 2, and so forth.

       command	      The complete command sequence variable that is to be executed.  Note that the command string must conform  to  Bourne  shell
		      syntax.

       The first five integer fields may be specified as follows:

       o   A single number in the specified range

       o   Two numbers separated by a minus, meaning a range inclusive

       o   A list of numbers separated by commas, meaning any of the numbers

       o   An asterisk meaning all legal values

       The sixth field is a string that is executed by the shell at the specified times.  A percent sign (%) in this field is translated to a new-
       line character.	Only the first line of the command field, up to a percent sign (%) or end of line, is executed by the  shell.	The  other
       lines are made available to the command as standard input.

Examples
       The following example is part of a file:
       # periodic things
       0,15,30,45 * * * * (echo '^M' `date`; echo '') >/dev/console
       0,15,30,45 * * * * /usr/lib/atrun

       # daily stuff
       5 4 * * * sh /usr/adm/newsyslog
       15 4 * * * ( cd /usr/preserve; find . -mtime +7 -a -exec rm -f {} ; )
       20 4 * * * find /usr/msgs -mtime +21 -a ! -perm 444 -a ! -name bounds
	    -a -exec rm -f {} ;

       # NOTE: The above line is wrapped.

       # local cleanups
       30 4 * * * find /usr/spool/mqueue -type f -mtime +5 -name df-exec rm {} ;
       35 4 * * * find /usr/spool/mqueue -type f -mtime +5 -name tf-exec rm {} ;
       40 4 * * * find /usr/spool/rwho -type f -mtime +21 -exec rm {} ;
       #

       # redirecting error output
       0 17 * * 1,3,5 /bin/tar -cv /usr/sysads/smith > /dev/console 2>&1
       #

Files
See Also
       sh(1), cron(8)
       Guide to System Environment Setup

																	crontab(5)
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