Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!oddjob!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Does nobody *read* these articles? (was: 4.3BSD rename() changes ctime)
Message-ID: <12888@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 7 Aug 88 22:22:25 GMT
References: <26657@oliveb.olivetti.com> <2167@pixar.UUCP> <12865@mimsy.UUCP> <37@taux02.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 16

In article <37@taux02.UUCP> amos@taux02.UUCP (Amos Shapir) writes:
>There were many replies to the original article - except that none of the
>posters seem to have really read it. The guy did not ask whether a renamed
>file's ctime should changed, but rather, why did rename change it when
>both files were identical, and therefore no change was actually done!

I answered that in my first followup.  I think I even put it in the
`summary' line:  crash recovery.

(Basically, if you crash in the middle of a rename, the link count has
to have been bumped.  As a side effect, another part of the kernel updates
the ctime.  It would not be unfeasible to reset the ctime after the
rename completes, but it *would* require changes outside the ufs code.)
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris