Re: ctime vs. Create Time

[RJ Atkinson <rja%extremenetworks.com@localhost>]

IMHO, we ought to be designing any file times with specific reference
to the IEEE POSIX.1 standard && we should avoid creating a new file 
timestamp
definition having semantics different from each of the POSIX timestamp
definitions.

On Monday, Oct 7, 2002, at 13:15 America/Montreal, Bill Sommerfeld 
wrote:
> unix doesn't have a concept of "creation time".  within the posix
> "stat" API, "ctime" is the "last metadata change" time whereas "mtime"
> is "last contents change"; "atime" is "last access time".
>
> Note that update of atimes is commonly disabled for performance
> reasons.
>
> If you are aiming for "least common denominator", the best you can do
> is a single timestamp for the mtime value.
>
> If you are aiming for "model every known filesystem feature relating
> to dates", then we'll be here for a while...
>
> 					- Bill