File times in 4.[23]
Chris Torek
chris at umcp-cs.UUCP
Thu Aug 21 15:42:49 AEST 1986
In article <7053 at boring.mcvax.UUCP> jack at mcvax.uucp (Jack Jansen) writes:
>... we noticed that the behaviour of file access times under 4.3
>is not according to the manual. ...
>Manual: access time changed by read, write and some others.
> modify time changed by write
> creation time changed by link, chmod, etc.
Hold! /There is no creation time!/ `ctime' is `last change' time.
It should be updated any time the disk inode is changed in any way,
so that the file is properly backed-up.
>4.2: access time changed by read *only*.
> modify time changed by write
> creation time changed by link, *but not chmod*.
If chmod does not update inode ctimes, it is rather seriously broken.
A full restore of a file system could leave many files with the wrong
modes.
>4.3: access time changed by read *only*.
> modify time changed by write
> creation time never changed (except by creation, of course).
This last is most certainly untrue.
>Especially the fact that the access time doesn't change on write
>looks like a bug to me....
No: here the manual must be in error. `access' means `read', more
or less.
The `ls' manual is buggy; it claims that `ls -c' sorts on, and/or
prints, file creation times, when in fact no such times are available.
Are there others that make similar claims?
--
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 1516)
UUCP: seismo!umcp-cs!chris
CSNet: chris at umcp-cs ARPA: chris at mimsy.umd.edu
More information about the Comp.unix.wizards
mailing list