I was looking at an old sandbox I have that contains some partially-made
changes to the documentation of -atime and related predicates.
In find.texi is:
@deffn Test -atime [+|-]n
@deffnx Test -ctime [+|-]n
@deffnx Test -mtime [+|-]n
True if the file was last accessed (or its status changed, or it was
modified) (exactly/more than/less than) n'
@var{n}*24 hours ago. The number of 24-hour periods since
the file's timestamp is always rounded down; therefore 0 means ``less
than 24 hours ago'', 1 means ``between 24 and 48 hours ago'', and so
forth. Fractional values are supported but this only really makes
sense for the case where ranges (@samp{+@var{n}} and @samp{-@var{n}})
are used.
@end deffn
You can see the change I made, which is to correct the syntax from
"-atime n" to "-atime [+|-]n". But that isn't what I'm asking about
here.
My question is the measning of "Fractional values are supported but this
only really makes sense for the case where ranges (@samp{+@var{n}} and
@samp{-@var{n}}) are used." What is the "vlaue" that it is
talking about, is it the "n" in the predicate or the "number of 24-hour
periods since ..."? The meaning seems to be the former (since the
latter would contradict how the atime value is computed), but the usage
of fractional "n" would not seem to be very useful, since a fractional
"n" could always be replaced with an integral "n" with the same effect.
Thanks,
Dale
