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From: terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert)
Message-Id: <9501022331.AA02074@cs.weber.edu>
Subject: Re: Why does ls report wrong creation date on symlinks?
To: bde@zeta.org.au (Bruce Evans)
Date: Mon, 2 Jan 95 16:31:07 MST
Cc: crtb@upcoming.dcrt.nih.gov, freebsd-bugs@freebsd.org,
        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199412310244.NAA19380@godzilla.zeta.org.au> from "Bruce Evans" at Dec 31, 94 01:44:08 pm
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> >It is precisely the fact that a DOS file system can not store all of
> >the date information required by POSIX that makes it impossible to
> >produce a POSIX compliant DOS file system.  The DOS FS simply can
> >not comply with the POSIX "shall mark for update" and "shall update"
> >directives.
> 
> >POSIX leaves a loophole, allowing read-only media to ignore the
> >update requirements -- so you can be technically compliant if you
> >mount the disk read-only.  Very useful.  8-).
> 
> Pretending that directories were modified at the current time breaks
> even this :-).

Actually, no it doesn't.

POSIX doesn't require the information be accurate.

POSIX only required that the information be updated in certain
circumstances.


Directories, on the other hand, do not even need to be considered as files
at all... the update semantics are based on the opendir/readdir.  The
question is whether or not it is legal to make a distinction between a
file descriptor being used to access a directory and one being used to
access a file, such that the first is not considered a file access.  This
is, it turns out, legal.  8-).


					Terry Lambert
					terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.