Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!sun!imagen!atari!towns
From: towns@atari.UUCP (John Townsend)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Archive bit
Message-ID: <1651@atari.UUCP>
Date: 14 Aug 89 23:21:11 GMT
References: <8908091359.AA08065@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 23

in article <8908091359.AA08065@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, SQ79@liverpool.ac.UK (Mark Powell) says:
> 
> 
>   Bit 5 of a file mode is the archive bit. This is to do with backing up files.
> When a file is backed up it's archive bit is set. When it is next written to
> the bit is cleared. From this senario the disk back up program can tell whether
> a file has been modified since the last back up and if so back up the file
> otherwise leave it. This enables an incremental backup to be performed i.e.
> back up your hard disk totally every month, and backup just the files that have
> changed every week. Unfortunatley this procedure doesn't work on the old TOSes
> (or so I'm informed) TOS 1.4 is said to fix this.
>   I have seen plenty of files on my disks with this bit set. You may be running
> a different TOS from me though. I've got a UK TOS 1.0 dated 20/11/85
> i.e. 20th November for you in the US who don't put the date in ascending or
> descending order of significance (make your minds up!)
> 

You have it backwards. In TOS 1.4, the bit is set when a file is created or
modified. The backup program should clear it after backing up the file.


-- John Townsend
   Atari Corp.