On Sat, 24 Jan 2009, Raymond Norton wrote:

> find /var/spool/MailScanner/quarantine -mtime +10 -type f -exec rm -rf {} \;
>>>
>>> Remove the "-type f"
>>
>> Will the time stamp on a directory always be at least as new as the
>> newest file in the tree within the directory?  Apparently not -- I
>> just checked it.  I think you might mean that he should remove the
>> "-type f" and also change the "-rf" to "-f".  Look at this on your
>> machine:
>>
>> ls -ld /home
>> ls -ld /home/*
>>
>> See what I mean?
>>
>> Mike
>
> I ran this script for the first time last night

What script are you talking about?  Please be explicit because we made 
some recommendations and I don't know which ones you used.  If ran the 
command shown on the first line above, then you were ignoring or 
misunderstanding what I wrote above.


> and it looks like I ran into this very problem. Instead of leaving 
> folder 20 days old, it only left folders 8 days old. Is there another 
> way to modify the script to only remove folders 21 days or older?

For testing purposes you can leave off the -exec and everything to the 
right of it.  Try changing the directory and using different options, 
stuff like this to see the dates on directories:

ls -ld $(find / -mtime +10 -type d) | less
ls -ld $(find / -mtime +30 -type d) | less

But you have to watch the recursive deleting, like I was saying.

Mike