[Help-bash] How to understand non existent file is considered as the oldest?

[Peng Yu]

Hi,

'file' exists and 'notexist' does not exist. The following example
basically means that non existent file is always considered as oldest
when they are compared with a existent file. But this is not quite
intuitive to me, as non existent file is yet to be created. It is more
intuitive to consider non existent file as newest.

[ notexist -nt file ] # false
[ notexist -ot file ] # true
[ file -nt notexist ] # true
[ file1 -ot notexist ] # false

But the decision of non existent file as the oldest must have some
rationale behind it. Could anybody let me know? (This might also help
me memorize this rule better.)

-- 
Regards,
Peng