From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:55:47 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Make use of stat.ctime configurable
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.1.10.0807281853520.3486@nehalem.linux-foundation.org>
In-Reply-To: <7v3alto4r7.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>



On Mon, 28 Jul 2008, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> 
> Ok.  While I have your attention on st_ctime, let me ask you a stupid
> question.  Why does "rename(old, new)" change st_ctime when you move a
> regular file?

Hmm. I think that's just a plain POSIX oddity. There's no real "reason" 
for it, except the historical one: in really old UNIX terms, rename used 
to be a "link+unlink".

And that "link+unlink" updated ctime because the 'nlink' part of the inode 
changed. Never mind that it got changed right back ;)

			Linus