Hi ,
How can I get the last access time of a file upto the precesion of seconds in Unix.
I cannot use stat as this is not supported.
Perl has a built in 'stat' command. Is this available to you?
1 Like
No the stat command is not avaiable to me..
Neither is the anewer command avaiable.
Actually I want to find out if the file was just accessed at the moment..
So to use atime with find is an option but how can I giive 1 sec with it.
PLease help.
Hi Kanus,
You can use certainly find command with seconds precision as follow:
# 10s/(60sXmin)=0.166666667 min
# 1s/(60sXmin)=0.0166666667 min
Then:
# 1-) Looking files modified less than 10 seconds ago:
find . -type f -amin -0.166666667
# 2-) Looking files modified less than 1 seconds ago:
find . -type f -amin -0.0166666667
# 3-) Looking files modified between 1 sec and 10 sec ago:
find . -type f -amin +0.01666667 -amin 0.166666667
Options to include this in a script would be:
# Script 1: Print files modified $ns seconds ago:
ns=$(echo "1/60" | bc -l) # ns=Number of seconds=1 in this case
find . -type f -amin -$ns
# Script 2: Print files modified $ns seconds ago, showing date and time:
ns=$(echo "10/60" | bc -l)
last=$(find . -type f -amin -$ns)
for each in $last
do
ls -l $(basename $each) | awk '{print $6,$7,$8}'
done
I hope this can be a start about what you need.
Regards.
Thanx so much for your explaination !!
But the problem is my find coomand doent supoort atime..It gave me the error :
find: bad option -amin
Is there any other method..
What Operating System and version do you have?
uname -a
Do you have "root" access and the administrative authority to install aditional software?
The suggestion about using Perl is a good one.
Your post does not imply that you are a "C language" programmer.
Hi Kanus
If you want to get only last access time of specific file you could use "ls" command as follow:
ls -ltu --time-style=+%H:%M:%S yourfile # print last access time of yourfile with seconds precision.
Or
ls -l --time=access -u --time-style=+%H:%M:%S yourfile # print last access time of yourfile with seconds precision.
If you want to get recursively (in subfolders too), last access time all files/folders you can do:
ls -lR --time=access -u --sort=time --time-style=+%H:%M:%S # Sorted by time, last accessed on top
Other examples (if "--time, --sort" options don't work in your system) try:
(*All the following examples aren't printed with seconds precision, because --time-style=+FORMAT is missing.
ls -ltu yourfile #access time of yourfile
ls -ltu #sort by, and show, access time all files within folder, except subfolders
ls -ltuR #sort by, and show, access time all files within folder and subfolders
I hope this is near what you need and work in your system.
Regards.
I dont understand what works here..This is the output when I ran the above command..What do I do ?????
ls -ltu --time-style=+%H:%M:%S abc
ls: illegal option -- -
ls: illegal option -- e
ls: illegal option -- -
ls: illegal option -- y
ls: illegal option -- e
ls: illegal option -- =
ls: illegal option -- +
ls: illegal option -- %
ls: illegal option -- H
ls: illegal option -- :
ls: illegal option -- %
ls: illegal option -- M
ls: illegal option -- :
ls: illegal option -- %
ls: illegal option -- S
usage: ls -1RaAdCxmnlhogrtucpFbqisfL@ [files]
---------- Post updated at 01:34 AM ---------- Previous update was at 01:32 AM ----------
@methyl :
uname -a
SunOS ohclexor4022 5.9 Generic_122300-08 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire-880
I dont have the root level access.
I have never worked on perl before.Can I use it in my shell script.
??
Please help....... 
Hi Kanus,
I don't have access to SunOS System, but I found man page of ls in the web. I see in SunOS doesn't have --time-style option. For that reason you receive that errors.
Reading the options you have, instead of:
ls -ltu --time-style=+%H:%M:%S yourfile
try with the following 2 command and see the difference:
ls -ltu yourfile
and
ls -etu yourfile # I guess this could be near of what you want
Reference: man ls in SunOS 5.10
-e The same as -l, except displays time to the
second, and with one format for all files
regardless of age: mmm dd hh:mm:ss yyyy.
-E The same as -l, except displays time to the
nanosecond and with one format for all files
regardless of age: yyyy-mm-dd
hh:mm:ss.nnnnnnnnn (ISO 8601:2000 format).
In addition, this option displays the offset
-l Lists in long format, giving mode, ACL indica-
tion, number of links, owner, group, size in
bytes, and time of last modification for each
file (see above). If the file is a special
file, the size field instead contains the major
and minor device numbers. If the time of last
modification is greater than six months ago, it
is shown in the format `month date year' for
the POSIX locale. When the LC_TIME locale
category is not set to the POSIX locale, a dif-
ferent format of the time field can be used.
Files modified within six months show `month
date time'. If the file is a symbolic link, the
filename is printed followed by "->" and the
path name of the referenced file.
-t Sorts by time stamp (latest first) instead of
by name. The default is the last modification
time. (See -u and -c.)
-u Uses time of last access instead of last modif-
ication for sorting (with the -t option) or
printing (with the -l option).
Hope it helps.
Regards.
1 Like
Thanks for helping me guys..
I really appreciate it..But what do I do..nothing works here..
this is what I got..as output..
ls -ltu --time-style=+%H:%M:%S abc
ls: illegal option -- -
ls: illegal option -- e
ls: illegal option -- -
ls: illegal option -- y
ls: illegal option -- e
ls: illegal option -- =
ls: illegal option -- +
ls: illegal option -- %
ls: illegal option -- H
ls: illegal option -- :
ls: illegal option -- %
ls: illegal option -- M
ls: illegal option -- :
ls: illegal option -- %
ls: illegal option -- S
usage: ls -1RaAdCxmnlhogrtucpFbqisfL@ [files]
m using the following version :
uname -a
SunOS ohclexor4022 5.9 Generic_122300-08 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire-880
:wall: :wall:
---------- Post updated at 02:58 AM ---------- Previous update was at 02:51 AM ----------
ls -etu abc
ls: illegal option -- e
usage: ls -1RaAdCxmnlhogrtucpFbqisfL@ [files]
---------- Post updated at 02:59 AM ---------- Previous update was at 02:58 AM ----------
The man page u attaches is og 5.10 mine is 5.9///
thats y..
---------- Post updated at 04:54 AM ---------- Previous update was at 02:59 AM ----------
Thanx a milllion Perderabo..
Ur perl command is working...M sooooooo happy..Thanks every1 for your time and help !!!