Xref: utzoo comp.unix.wizards:8325 comp.os.misc:431 comp.os.vms:5968 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!pasteur!ji.Berkeley.EDU!kolding From: kolding@ji.Berkeley.EDU (Eric Koldinger) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.os.misc,comp.os.vms Subject: Re: Uses for access time Message-ID: <3167@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu> Date: 7 May 88 19:03:22 GMT References: <3672@lynx.UUCP> <8726@oberon.USC.EDU> <4876@cup.portal.com> <4054@mtgzz.UUCP> <10730@steinmetz.ge.com> <5439@venera.isi.edu> Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu Reply-To: kolding@ji.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Eric Koldinger) Distribution: na Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 26 Keywords: 4.3 BSD >>>Unfortunately, "access time" is NOT updated when an executable is >>>executed. I was once on a system whose very clever administrator wrote a >>>demon to archive any file not "accessed" in the last month. He soon >>>archived an executable I was exec'ing every day from my .profile. >> >>I tried this on several systems, and it seems that you are correct for >>BSD (at least the Ultrix and SunOS versions), but not for SysV (again at >>least Xenix and 2B2/300 flavors). I'm glad you pointed this out, since I >>do just what you mention on my machine (SysV). I hate to disagree with you, but 4.3 BSD does update the access time when a program is executed. I just checked /usr/local/rn with an ls -lu, and I got the following: -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 137216 May 7 11:59 /usr/local/rn and the date right now is (according to date): Sat May 7 12:04:41 PDT 1988 so I'd say if got touched when I fired up this process up. Perhaps you've been checking on read only file systems, or perhaps the program wasn't working right and archiving files that hadn't been changed in a while. _ /| Eric \`o_O' kolding@ji.berkeley.edu ( ) "Gag Ack Barf" {....}!ucbvax!ji!kolding U