ls -u

[ddrillich]

Good Day,

man ls says the following about the –u option:

-u Uses time of last access instead of last modification for sorting (with the -t option) or printing (with the -l option).

Does anybody know the definition of "last access"?


$ ls -lu
total 426
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 1143 Mar 6 00:01 caCertificate.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 62335 Mar 6 00:01 confSSLws.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 27220 Mar 6 00:01 configureSSLws.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 124 Mar 6 00:01 local.cshrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 607 Mar 6 00:01 local.login
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 582 Mar 6 00:01 local.profile
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 0 Jan 12 16:30 nohup.out
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 112363 Mar 6 00:01 unconfigureWS.txt
$ ls -lt
total 426
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 0 Jan 12 16:30 nohup.out
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 112363 Dec 28 18:19 unconfigureWS.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 62335 Dec 28 18:19 confSSLws.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 27220 Dec 28 17:47 configureSSLws.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 1143 Dec 28 16:54 caCertificate.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 124 Aug 4 2005 local.cshrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 607 Aug 4 2005 local.login
-rw-r--r-- 1 vgnadmin vgnadm 582 Aug 4 2005 local.profile

Regards,
Dan

 

[KenCunningham]

Hi Dan. My understanding is that it's the time the file was last accessed by any application or OS process which makes use of it.

 

[ddrillich]

Thanks Ken!

 

[elgrandeperro]

The stat man page under
st_atime specifies which system calls update that field:

st_atime
Time when file data was last accessed. Changed by the
following functions: creat(), mknod(), pipe(),
utime(2), and read(2)

So creating the file, or reading. But if the
file is previously created and you move it, no.

gene