In -X FILEHANDLE, how to derive the -C of all files in a $dir variable?

[taint]

Greetings everyone,
I've been struggling with an attempt to clobber symlinks in a folder, if they are older than N minutes.
After much work with File::Find, I found that I am unable to make it work. SO, I decided to look to perlfunc's -X (-C in this case). which will return the Creation-time, which I can compare to Current-time. Allowing me to clobber anything older than 11 minutes from now.
Problem is, I'm not smart enough to figure out to how list the files Creation-time with perlfunc's -C. Looking at How do I delete... get's me close. But does mtime (modified) == ctime?
I could get close:

# delete $file if it's not been modified for 15 minutes
if ( (stat $file)[9] < time() - (3600 / 5) ) {
    unlink $file;
}

Never mind the example above, it doesn't work, it returns:

Use of uninitialized value in numeric lt (<) at line 12 (#1)
 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistak
+e.
 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.

Would anyone be willing to provide an example, please?

Thank you for all your consideration

--chris

[kcott]

G'day Chris,

The reason that your stat version failed was probably due to $file not existing (possibly deleted in an earlier test). The code is fine; although, I would question your use of parentheses — see the operator precedence table in perlop. Also, note that 15mins. is 900secs. but 3600 / 5 == 720 (i.e. 12 mins.): 60 * 15 would be a clearer indication of the value you want.

I'd recommend that you run some tests (similar to what I show below) which simply indicate what files are to be deleted. When you're happy everything works, then start using unlink. A backup of the directory you're working in would also be a good idea.

$ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -E '
    my $file = q{pm_1030903.dummy};
    say "(stat \$file)[9] = ", (stat $file)[9];
    say "15 mins. ago = ", time - 60 * 15;
    if ( (stat $file)[9] < time - 60 * 15 ) {
        say "[stat] Will delete $file";
    }
    say "-C \$file = ", -C $file;
    say "15 mins. in days = ", 60*15 / (24*60*60);
    if ((-C $file) > 60*15 / (24*60*60)) {
        say "[-C] Will delete $file";
    }
'
(stat $file)[9] = 1367039733
15 mins. ago = 1367041074
[stat] Will delete pm_1030903.dummy
-C $file = 0.0151736111111111
15 mins. in days = 0.0104166666666667
[-C] Will delete pm_1030903.dummy

[BrowserUk]

From perlfunc:

-M Script start time minus file modification time, in days. -A Same for access time. -C Same for inode change time

So, for 15 minutes you want any matching file where the return from -C is > than 15*60 / 86400:

while( glob '*' ) {
    if( -C() > 0.010416 ) {
        unlink $_;
    }
}