Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2011 09:18:18 -0800 From: mdf@FreeBSD.org To: "Ronald F. Guilmette" <rfg@tristatelogic.com> Cc: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Subject: Re: write access to various times Message-ID: <CAMBSHm8ry6wF8z-ELhfAqrC7zzARat-YgZa8ymofHq16aQbxOg@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <60946.1320475599@tristatelogic.com> References: <60946.1320475599@tristatelogic.com>
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On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 11:46 PM, Ronald F. Guilmette <rfg@tristatelogic.com> wrote: > It would appear that in 8.2-RELEASE, at least, each "struct stat" contains > four fields, each of type "timespec", and having the following names: > > st_atimespec > st_mtimespec > st_ctimespec > st_birthtimespec > > I already know that if I want to modify either (or both) of the first > two fields listed above, I should call utimes(2). But what do I do if I need > to modify the values of either or both of the other two fields? (I may want > to do this, e.g. if I am trying to restore all of the struct stat fields > from a backed-up representation of some original filesystem entry.) > > The current man page for utimes(2) says (among other things): > > =========================================================================== > ... > If times is non-NULL, it is assumed to point to an array of two timeval > structures. The access time is set to the value of the first element, > and the modification time is set to the value of the second element. For > file systems that support file birth (creation) times (such as UFS2), the > birth time will be set to the value of the second element if the second > element is older than the currently set birth time. To set both a birth > time and a modification time, two calls are required; the first to set > the birth time and the second to set the (presumably newer) modification > time. Ideally a new system call will be added that allows the setting of > all three times at once... > =========================================================================== > > Is there any ETA for this postulated new system call? To my knowledge, no. I think this was a hopeful statement on the original author's part. AFAIK no one is working on this change. We have a patch at $WORK that adds a vtimes(2) syscall with support for setting birthtime as well as mtime and atime. Some day [1] I may be able to upstream this functionality back to FreeBSD. [1] predicated on continued employment, change of roles at $WORK, time, and community acceptance of the changes. A rough estimate would be sometime in the middle or end of 2012. Cheers, matthew > Also, of course, although the method described above for setting the value of > the st_birthtimespec field is rather clumsey and inefficient, at least there > _is_ a way to set that field. I am concerned however because I personally > still know of no way whatsoever to set the value of the st_ctimespec field. > Is there any way to do that? > > It would be most helpful to have that too.
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