Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: tla1.2 on cygwin

[Robert Collins]

On Mon, 2004-03-15 at 05:05, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> >> I'd rather assume that if ctime and size have not changed, then the file
> >> hasn't changed, even though it's possibly incorrect.
> > You meant mtime, right? :-)
> 
> Actually no: I meant ctime.
> mtime can be tweaked with touch, so you can't rely on it if you want to
> be safe.  But admittedly, CVS relies on exclusively on mtime (not even the
> size) and problems related to that have been extremely rare.

hardlinking updates ctime. ctime cannot be used.

> That can happen while keeping the inode constant as well.

not without deliberate intervention a la touch. We're not aiming to
prevent people shooting their own foot off. We're trying to provide
sights so that they know when they've pointed the gun at said foot.

> > All of the "changes" and "file diffs" will produce faulty output if the
> > basis for comparison is corrupt.
> 
> Sure.  Corruption can and does happen without changing any inode number,
> mtime, or size.  

Oh? (Not disk random bits changing though - that disk sector checksums
are for).

Rob
-- 
GPG key available at: <http://www.robertcollins.net/keys.txt>.

signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part