Suppose you want to find files modified in the last 5 minutes, using the find command.
The -mtime option, which can be used to specify a number of days, is documented as discarding any fractional part.
File was last modified n*24 hours ago. When find figures out how many 24-hour periods ago the file was last modified, any fractional part is ignored.
(Actually it's in the man page under -atime, where it has an analogous meaning. I've replaced "accessed" with "modified" here.)
In a script, it would be possible to do:
find $starting_dir -newermt "$(date -d '5 minutes ago' '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')"
but this form is a bit unwieldy for convenient interactive use.
Is there a more concise formulation that can be conveniently remembered and typed when needed?
Assume that the GNU versions of common command-line tools are installed, but not any local customisations such as command aliases or helper scripts.
