Advanced Programming in

the UNIX Environment

Week 04, Segment 7:
atime, mtime, ctime
Department of Computer Science
Stevens Institute of Technology

Jan Schaumann
jschauma@stevens.edu
https://stevens.netmeister.org/631/
 CS631 - Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment

struct stat
struct stat {
dev_t st_dev; /* device number (filesystem) */
ino_t st_ino; /* i-node number (serial number) */
mod_t st_mode; /* file type & mode (permissions) */
dev_t st_rdev; /* device number for special files */
nlink_t st_nlink; /* number of links */
uid_t st_uid; /* user ID of owner */
gid_t st_gid; /* group ID of owner */
off_t st_size; data
/* size in bytes, for regular files */
time_t st_atime; /* time of last Vaccess */
data
time_t st_mtime; /* time of lastVmodification */
time_t st_ctime; /* time of last file status change */
long st_blocks; /* number of 512-byte blocks allocated */
long st_blksize; /* optimal I/O block size */
}

Relevant ls(1) flags: '-c', '-t', '-u'

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atime, mtime, ctime

mtime

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atime

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atime, mtime, ctime

ctime

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utimes(2)
#include <sys/time.h>

int utimes(const char *path, const struct timeval times[2]);

int lutimes(const char *path, const struct timeval times[2]);
int futimes(int fd, const struct timeval times[2]);
int utimensat(int fd, const char *path, const struct timespec times[2], int flag);
Returns: 0 if OK, -1 on error

• if times is NULL, set atime and mtime to current time (write permissions sufficient)
• if times is non-NULL, set atime and mtime accordingly (need to be owner)
• either way, ctime is set to current time
• timespec allows for nanosecond precision
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atime, mtime, ctime

• atime: time of last data access
• may trigger frequent I/O; diminishes performance
• remedies: mount -o noatime, nodiratime, relatime, lazytime
• mtime: time of last data modification
• ctime: time of last file status change; automatically updated by various syscalls
• utimes(2) with values requires ownership; may update non-standard time fields
• you can now implement touch(1)

Time is weird. We'll get into more on that next time.

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Links and Discussions

• POSIX: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/
V1_chap04.html#tag_04_09
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stat_%28system_call%29#Criticism_of_atime
• Once upon atime: https://lwn.net/Articles/244829/

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