Finding all .cpp files in the users home directory

Question

How we will find more accurately all .cpp files in the users home directory that were modified no more than 5 minutes ago?

Answer 1

find can select files on various time conditions:

find ~ -type f -name '*.cpp' -mmin -5 -ls

The command lists the files

• in the directory ~ and it's subdirectories; There can be multiple directories.
• of type f: plain file, so a directory like ./foo.cpp is not found (it is of type d)
• matching the shell glob expression '*.cpp' - which needs to be quoted, so the shell does not expand it before find it even sees.
• which have a modification time (-m...) up to (-) 5 minutes (-...min) ago.
• and shows the details similar to a ls -l

-mmin selects by modification time in minutes,
-mtime would select by modification time in days.

-mmin -5 selects files changed in the last 5 minutes,
-mmin 5 selects for changed 5 minutes ago,
-mmin +5 for more than 5 minutes

-newer otherfile compares to the age of another file

-iname '*.cpp' would also match foo.CPP and bar.cPp

-ls shows file details like modification time. To get only filenames, leave it out.

That's a short summary, there are many more useful options - see man find.