question regarding SCCS internals

[Michael Bloom]

In the sccs source, in get() in get.c, the p-file gets updated prior to
generating the new g-file.  Is this ordering absulutely necessary? i.e
would something break if I were to reverse this order?

For a given SID, i'd like to be certain that the date symbolically stored
in the p-file is never less than than the stat-able mod time of the g-file
until a change has been made to the g-file.  This would allow automatic
detection of modules that need to be checked back in.

Perhaps better than reversing the order might be to simply use utime()
to set the g-file's mod date to "Timenow". This is particularly
appealing in that it's only a one line addition.  What might break
with this approach?

Finally, is some obvious solution already present that i've been blindly
overlooking? 

- michael