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
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
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5 4 * * * sh /usr/adm/newsyslog
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20 4 * * * find /usr/msgs -mtime +21 -a ! -perm 444 -a ! -name bounds
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Guide to System Environment Setup
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