time glob qualifiers

time glob qualifiers

[Vincent Lefevre]

The zshexpn(1) says:

  a[Mwhms][-|+]n
    files  accessed  exactly  n days ago.  Files accessed within the
    last n days are selected using a  negative  value  for  n  (-n).
    Files accessed more than n days ago are selected by a positive n
    value (+n).  Optional unit specifiers `M', `w', `h', `m' or  `s'
    (e.g.  `ah5') cause the check to be performed with months (of 30
    days), weeks, hours, minutes or seconds instead of days, respec-
    tively.   For instance, `echo *(ah-5)' would echo files accessed
    within the last five hours.

This isn't clear, and the only example is the one for which there
is no ambiguity. The man page should say that the fractional part
is discarded, and should give an example for a+1 for instance.

The find(1) man page from the findutils is more explicit:

  -atime n
    File was last accessed n*24 hours ago.  When  find  figures  out
    how  many  24-hour  periods  ago the file was last accessed, any
    fractional part is ignored, so to match -atime +1, a file has to
    have been accessed at least two days ago.

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.org> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <http://www.vinc17.org/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arenaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)

Re: time glob qualifiers

[Peter Stephenson]

Phew.

Index: Doc/Zsh/expn.yo
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/zsh/zsh/Doc/Zsh/expn.yo,v
retrieving revision 1.84
diff -u -r1.84 expn.yo
--- Doc/Zsh/expn.yo	13 Dec 2007 20:52:56 -0000	1.84
+++ Doc/Zsh/expn.yo	13 Dec 2007 21:47:47 -0000
@@ -2076,8 +2076,14 @@
 value (tt(PLUS())var(n)).  Optional unit specifiers `tt(M)', `tt(w)',
 `tt(h)', `tt(m)' or `tt(s)' (e.g. `tt(ah5)') cause the check to be
 performed with months (of 30 days), weeks, hours, minutes or seconds
-instead of days, respectively.  For instance, `tt(echo *(ah-5))' would
-echo files accessed within the last five hours.
+instead of days, respectively.
+
+Any fractional part of the difference between the access time and the
+current part in the appropriate units is ignored in the comparison.  For
+instance, `tt(echo *(ah-5))' would echo files accessed within the last
+five hours, while `tt(echo *(ah+5))' would echo files accessed at least
+six hours ago, as times strictly between five and six hours are treated
+as five hours.
 )
 item(tt(m)[tt(Mwhms)][tt(-)|tt(PLUS())]var(n))(
 like the file access qualifier, except that it uses the file modification


-- 
Peter Stephenson <p.w.stephenson@ntlworld.com>
Web page now at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/p.w.stephenson/