file read dates

[Jerry Peek]

In article <183 at magic.ARPA> stewart at magic.ARPA (Larry Stewart) writes:
> Who looks at file read dates?  Do any more-or-less standard Unix
> applications look at them?  Are they worth the trouble of maintaining?

One thing that's done on a lot of Tektronix VAXen (and, I've heard, at a lot
of sites other places) is a command like this started by cron:

	find / \( -name '#*' -o -name ',*' \) -atime +3 -print | xargs rm -f &

Late at night, it checks for any files whose names start with a comma or pound
sign which haven't been read in three days... and zaps them.

So, users who want to make a file "temporary" can "remove" it by adding a comma
or pound-sign to the start of the name... but they'll be able to get it back
within three days if they change their minds.  Our MH mail "rmm" command takes
advantage of this, fr' instance.  Users have also set up "rm"-like commands
that add a comma to the filename and "mv" it into to a "to-be-deleted"
directory for "cron" to find.

[P.S.  I posted this instead of mailing directly to Larry because I thought
       some sites might not have heard of the scheme.  It's pretty handy.]

--Jerry Peek, Tektronix, Inc.
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