Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 18:59:17 -0500 From: lists@battleface.com To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: mtime and directories... Message-ID: <383537BA-1A23-11D8-B220-000A95775140@battleface.com>
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Changing a file, of course, results in a change to its modification time. Am I correct in determining that the mtime of the enclosing directory is also updated? The reason I'm asking this is because I need to be able to determine if any file has changed within a directory from a shell script, Perl, or Python. All I need to know is if at least one file has changed. I don't need to find all such files. [Sidelight: anyone know how, if possible, to stop find after finding one file? I can't figure this one out alone.] My initial solution was to use 'find' to find any files newer than a marker file. However, I believe I've determined that the mtime of enclosing directories also changes to reflect the last file that was updated within its hierarchy. So, it makes sense that I simply check the directory that contains the marker file. Thanks, Alex
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