What action updates a file's ACCESS time?

[Ray Shwake]

bill at twg.bc.ca (Bill Irwin) writes:

>1) vi the file and quit without saving (access time updated)
>2) TAR archive some files to tape (updated)

	In both cases, your program opened the file for reading, thus
	the access time was updated.

>3) list file names to a file and printer
>   ls -l > /tmp/list  (not updated)
>   ls -l | lp         (not updated)

	In these cases, only the inode (containing file information) was
	accessed, not the files themselves. Thus, access time was not updated.

	shwake at raysnec