Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!chinet!les
From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: find
Keywords: time atime mtime ctime
Message-ID: <1989Dec13.153838.4060@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 13 Dec 89 15:38:38 GMT
References: <21721@adm.BRL.MIL> <1989Dec12.060748.29698@csusac.csus.edu> <21231@mimsy.umd.edu>
Reply-To: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX
Lines: 15

In article <21231@mimsy.umd.edu> chris@mimsy.umd.edu (Chris Torek) writes:

>`ctime' can be thought of as `time of last operation that requires that
>the file be backed up'.  A backup program can decide whether a file needs
>saving by comparing the file's ctime with the time of the previous backup.

Unless, of course, someone has run cpio with the -a option for the
previous backup like the SysV sysadmin scripts do.  The -a option resets
the atime in order to pretend that the file has not been read, and in
the process modifies ctime. 
Also, wouldn't it make sense for "find -newer" to compare ctime instead
of mtime (except in the above circumstance)?

Les Mikesell
  les@chinet.chi.il.us