4.3BSD rename() changes ctime

Jerry Aguirre jerry at olivey.olivetti.com
Thu Aug 4 11:42:52 AEST 1988


Prior to the "rename" system call the mv command would change the ctime
of a file even though the resulting data AND inode were identical.  This
was an anavoidable consequence of the link and unlink process used to
implement renaming.

Well, now that we have rename, it still does!  It doesn't seem right
that a system call that doesn't change the inode or the data in the file
should result in the file being dumped in the next backup.

Is this a bug or is there some justification for rename updating the
ctime?



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