linux-ext4 - Re: rfc: [patch] change attribute for ext3

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Message-ID: <20060914012449.GC22224@fieldses.org>
Date:	Wed, 13 Sep 2006 21:24:49 -0400
From:	"J. Bruce Fields" <bfields@...ldses.org>
To:	Andreas Dilger <adilger@...sterfs.com>
Cc:	Alexandre Ratchov <alexandre.ratchov@...l.net>,
	linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org, nfsv4@...ux-nfs.org
Subject: Re: rfc: [patch] change attribute for ext3

On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 01:31:30PM -0600, Andreas Dilger wrote:
> On Sep 13, 2006  18:42 +0200, Alexandre Ratchov wrote:
> > The patch also adds a new ``st_change_attribute'' field in the stat
> > structure, and modifies the stat(2) syscall accordingly. Currently the
> > change is only visible on i386 and x86_64 archs.
> 
> Is this really necessary for knfsd?

Of course knfsd is completely in kernel, so it doesn't care about the
userspace interface.

But I think that a change attribute is potentially an *extremely* useful
thing, and for more than just nfs servers.  Lots of userspace programs
also need to know whether a file has changed since they last examined
it, and also suffer from the limitations of using ctime or mtime as an
imperfect approximation to a real change attribute.

But it would make sense to split the user space changes into a second
patch and possibly apply it later.

--b.
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