On 14 August 2005 16:51, Michael Sullivan wrote: > Under what condition is the date of a directory (shown with ls -l) > updated? Is it when the directory is created, or when a file somewhere > below the directory is updated or some other time? I make weekly > backups of the user accounts on my server box. Because space and CD > media are in limited supply (at least for me) I write the backups to CD > once a month. Full backups are made on Sunday and after a new Sunday's > backup has been made I edit the previous Sunday's backup and delete all > files that hadn't been changed recently when that backup (the one I'm > editing) was made. This is a somewhat time-consuming method. I was > just wondering if the directory date could give me a clue as to the date > of the most recent file updated under that directory...
Not really. The timestamp is changed when the directory itself (not it's content) is written to. Creating a file in that directory (but not in a subdirectory of it) changes it. Same for removing a file or renaming it. Uwe -- 95% of all programmers rate themselves among the top 5% of all software developers. - Linus Torvalds http://www.uwix.iway.na (last updated: 20.06.2004) -- [email protected] mailing list
