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ctimectimePosted Jul 29, 2010 4:04 UTC (Thu) by markh (subscriber, #33984)Parent article: File creation times
ctime is actually very useful, as it is currently the only somewhat reliable way to determine that something has changed (by checking whether ctime or mtime has been updated). For some reason when people copy files from other places they like to also copy the last modification time. Fortunately that will set the ctime to the current time and they cannot alter that. So when something breaks and I want to find what changed I can at least search for recent ctime or mtime.
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ctime Posted Jul 29, 2010 23:46 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] The provision I quoted applies to end users. It also prohibits distribution of those adaptations: OK, I'll bite. The reason is that they use the modification time as a version indication of the content of the file, not of the file per se. I found that I most often want mtime to be the former, so many years ago I changed "cp" to an alias that preserves mtime, and I have been much happier since. I use mtimes in manual processes a lot. Of course, I get bitten the reverse way sometimes.
ctime Posted Jul 30, 2010 0:45 UTC (Fri) by markh (subscriber, #33984) [Link]
I have no problem with people using mtime this way, as long as there is some other way to determine that some change was made. ctime satisfies that nicely. I am just concerned that Linus of all people would suggest that ctime is not useful and would be so quick to suggest that it be repurposed.
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