detect what files have changed in an application

[Tom_ZeCat]

Long story that I won't bore you with. Suffice it to say I've installed an application and want to deduce what files it changes when I change a setting. An old Windows trick I used to do was to set the OS date to some date in the future, run the app and change the setting in the app, and then close the app and change the date back to the present. Then I could scan Windows for any file that had that future date I had set and I would have an idea what the app did.

However, I've just used a Linux "Find Files and Folders" feature to find every file that changed yesterday, March 24, 2014, and it pulled up all kinds of files of many different dates. Annoying. I just want to be able to find out what file this application is changing when you go into the user settings and make changes. It's not an open source app, unfortunately.

[sithlord48]

settings are generally kept in ~/.config/<PROGRAM NAME> they are also in ~/.kde/config (sometimes if kde app) or a few other places in your home folder, unless they are system wide changes those are usually stored somewhere in /etc. im sure thats not the exact answer your were hoping for but it should help you narrow down the changes files at least somewhat.

[blobfish]

I think strace will work for you.

[jlittle]

I think sithlord48's advice is your best bet, but maybe you'd like to know about a finer-grained approach using Gnu find in a terminal:

find -newermt 16:00:00

finds files in the current directory (or subdirecories) that have been modified since 16:00:00 (16 will do). Add -ls to get a listing like ls.

(Oath, on my system nepomuk has a 1.1 G database... for another thread I think.)

Regards, John Little