At 01:42 AM 11/27/2004, Keith Burton wrote:
Does using last_write_time leave an opportunity for false negative because it has been updated in between obtaining the value for each filename?
Holding open the first fir handle until the second has also been processed protects against race conditions caused by defragging. But not against a file size or last write time change. I'm not sure there is anything that can be done about that. Race conditions can often poison filesystem operations; that's just a fact-of-life with most operating systems.
Would using creation_time ( if available ) be safer ?
My feeling was that if a filesystem only supported a single date (as some legacy systems did), then it was likely to be last_write_time. While there are theoretical holes in the current logic, I'm hoping that it provides a practical implementation useful in real-world applications. If users run into practical problems, I hope they will report them here right away. --Beman