Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!yale!cmcl2!brl-adm!umd5!purdue!i.cc.purdue.edu!j.cc.purdue.edu!pur-ee!iuvax!bsu-cs!neubauer
From: neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP (Paul Neubauer)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: files date.
Message-ID: <2076@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Date: 11 Feb 88 00:32:35 GMT
References: <8802091036.AA20109@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <2072@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana
Lines: 22
Summary: a LEGITIMATE reason to change a date

In article <2072@bsu-cs.UUCP>, cfchiesa@bsu-cs.UUCP (Sir Xetwnk) writes:
+ In article <8802091036.AA20109@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, V4039@TEMPLEVM.BITNET (Stan Horwitz) writes:
+ >   In any case, it doesn't make much sense to want to change a file's dates.
+ > Why would anyone want to do such a thing?
+ 
+ Speaking as a student who has never actually done this, but who knows people
+ who HAVE, I'd have to say that the main reason people want to change that 
+ creation or modification date is to make a homework program assignment look
+ as though it was finished on time rather than late -- a lot of profs go by
+ 
+ I'm sure there may be other reasons for changing a file date, too... 

I am sure that some people may want to predate a file for reasons like that,
but I can also think of at least one legitimate reason for wanting to change
a file's date (to later).  That is something like the *nix touch utility
that is used along with make.  Rather than actually modifying the file
itself, a VMS touch utility could simply change the date to force CMS, MMS
or some other make-type utility to recompile it.

-- 
Paul Neubauer         neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP
                      <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!neubauer