[H-GEN] chestnut
Jason Parker-Burlingham
jasonp at uq.net.au
Thu Mar 27 22:01:03 EST 2003
[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and ]
[ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]
David Seikel <won_fang at yahoo.com.au> writes:
> Tony Nugent <tony at linuxworks.com.au> wrote:
> > One issue to consider: "oldest file" -- by creation time, last
> > modify time, or last access date?
> This one has been asked a few times. Unless I am mistaken , files cannot
> be modified or accessed before they are created, so oldest by creation time
> is the obvious answer.
$ man 2 stat # what creation time?
[...]
DESCRIPTION
These functions return information about the specified file.
You do not need any access rights to the file to get this
information but you need search rights to all directories named
in the path leading to the file.
[...]
They all return a stat structure, which contains the following fields:
struct stat {
dev_t st_dev; /* device */
ino_t st_ino; /* inode */
mode_t st_mode; /* protection */
nlink_t st_nlink; /* number of hard links */
uid_t st_uid; /* user ID of owner */
gid_t st_gid; /* group ID of owner */
dev_t st_rdev; /* device type (if inode device) */
off_t st_size; /* total size, in bytes */
blksize_t st_blksize; /* blocksize for filesystem I/O */
blkcnt_t st_blocks; /* number of blocks allocated */
time_t st_atime; /* time of last access */
time_t st_mtime; /* time of last modification */
time_t st_ctime; /* time of last change */
};
[...]
The field st_atime is changed by file accesses, e.g. by
execve(2), mknod(2), pipe(2), utime(2) and read(2) (of more
than zero bytes). Other routines, like mmap(2), may or may not
update st_atime.
The field st_mtime is changed by file modifications, e.g. by
mknod(2), truncate(2), utime(2) and write(2) (of more than zero
bytes). Moreover, st_mtime of a directory is changed by the
creation or deletion of files in that directory. The st_mtime
field is not changed for changes in owner, group, hard link
count, or mode.
The field st_ctime is changed by writing or by setting inode
information (i.e., owner, group, link count, mode, etc.).
--
uck Wa!
--
* This is list (humbug) general handled by majordomo at lists.humbug.org.au .
* Postings to this list are only accepted from subscribed addresses of
* lists 'general' or 'general-post'. See http://www.humbug.org.au/
More information about the General
mailing list