"find -mtime": 1,782 /etc files over 250 years old!?

[Jameson C. Burt]

"Find" produces 1,782 /etc files last modified over 250 years ago,
   /usr/bin/find /etc -mtime +100000   -printf '%Tc %p\n' |wc
If you remove "|wc", you will see that none of these files 
was modified before 1998.

I notice this same -mtime bug with GNU "find" 
on Debian Linux (woody distribution),
on Debian Linux (potato distribution), and 
on AIX,
but NOT with IBM's own (non-GNU) "find" on AIX version 4.3.
So, this appears to be the upstream author's problem 
that has existed for at least 3 years.

Seeking more understanding, one can run the bash script 
at the end of this email.  
Using that, here is the the number of "Files-found" in /etc 
with a name having the string "host" 
that were last modified over "Days" ago 
[Files-found should never increase with increasing -mtime days].
     Days     Files-found
        1     30
       10     30
      100     30
     1000      6
    10000      0
   100000     24  <--OVER 250 YEARS OLD
  1000000      0
 10000000      0
100000000      0

I include the upstream email address  address@hidden
in the "To:" address so that they might fix this problem/bug
[I was too lazy to look at the source code].



~~~Script used:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
printf '       Days     Files-found\n'
for DAYS in $(cat <<+++
   1
   10
   100
   1000
   10000
   100000
   1000000
   10000000
   100000000
+++
)
do
  printf  '%10s' $DAYS
  /usr/bin/find /etc -name '*host*' -mtime +$DAYS |wc -l
done


-- 
Jameson C. Burt, NJ9L   Fairfax, Virginia, USA
address@hidden       http://www.coost.com
(202) 690-0380 (work)