What action updates a file's ACCESS time?

[Tom Christiansen]

In article <893 at jonlab.UUCP> jon at jonlab.UUCP (Jon H. LaBadie) writes:
:Note also that write's to a file require a read first.  You may want to
:write one character.  But disks transfer data in blocks.  Thus, to
:write your one character, the block it will be written in must be read
:into memory.  You will "write" your one character into that memory
:buffer and the entire block will be written to disk.

:Thus writes also update access times.

Well, that depends.  On a Sun, it does; on a Vax (running 4.3) or a Convex
(running basically 4.3 on the insides), it does not.  So I wouldn't say
that write ALWAYS udpates access times.  It depends on your system.

--tom
--
Tom Christiansen		tchrist at convex.com	convex!tchrist
"With a kernel dive, all things are possible, but it sure makes it hard
 to look at yourself in the mirror the next morning."  -me