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Top Forums UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers Unsure why access time on a directory change isn't changing Post 303037890 by hicksd8 on Thursday 15th of August 2019 05:12:14 PM
Old 08-15-2019
You didn't say which operating system this is but there has to be difference between read and open. If you think about it, if a read updated the access time then all the access times would change when a backup is run which wouldn't be any good if you had to restore the whole lot. However, if an application opens a file then that will update the access time. For example, if you open a file with vi and then immediately quit with :q!, the access time should update because the file has been specifically opened. Additionally, if youvi followed by :w! (even if you haven't changed anything) the file will be written back so the modified date should change.

Now with a directory it is holding the details of its files so if a new file is created the directory is modified. Also, if an application specifically opens a file with that directory in its pathname (and blocks may need to be allocated/deallocated to the file), then the access time should change.

You should be able to verify this on your operating system with a few tests.

Last edited by hicksd8; 08-16-2019 at 05:20 AM..
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utime(2)							   System Calls 							  utime(2)

NAME
utime - set file access and modification times SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h> #include <utime.h> int utime(const char *path, const struct utimbuf *times); DESCRIPTION
The utime() function sets the access and modification times of the file pointed to by path, and causes the time of the last file status change (st_ctime) to be updated. If times is NULL, the access and modification times of the file are set to the current time. A process must be the owner of the file or have write permission to use utime() in this manner. If times is not NULL, times is interpreted as a pointer to a utimbuf structure (defined in <utime.h>) and the access and modification times are set to the values contained in the designated structure. Only the owner of the file or a process that has the {PRIV_FILE_OWNER} privi- lege asserted in its effective set can use utime() in this manner. The utimbuf structure contains the following members: time_t actime; /* access time */ time_t modtime; /* modification time */ The times contained in the members of the utimbuf structure are measured in seconds since 00:00:00 UTC, January 1, 1970. RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, 0 is returned. Otherwise, -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error. ERRORS
The utime() function will fail if: EACCES Search permission is denied by a component of the path prefix. EACCES The process does not have appropriate privileges and is not the owner of the file, write permission is denied for the file, and times is NULL. EFAULT The path argument points to an illegal address. EINTR A signal was caught during the execution of the utime() function. EIO An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system. ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating path. ENAMETOOLONG The length of the path argument exceeds PATH_MAX, or the length of a path component exceeds NAME_MAX while _POSIX_NO_TRUNC is in effect. ENOENT The named file does not exist or is a null pathname. ENOLINK The path argument points to a remote machine and the link to that machine is no longer active. ENOTDIR A component of the path prefix is not a directory. EPERM The effective user of the calling process is not the owner of the file, {PRIV_FILE_OWNER} is not asserted in the effective set of the calling process, and times is not NULL. EROFS The file system containing the file is mounted read-only. ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Interface Stability |Standard | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |MT-Level |Async-Signal-Safe | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ SEE ALSO
stat(2), utimes(2), attributes(5), privileges(5), standards(5) SunOS 5.11 19 Apr 2004 utime(2)
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