Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755206Ab0GVPhQ (ORCPT ); Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:37:16 -0400 Received: from mail.SerNet.de ([193.175.80.2]:46505 "EHLO mail.SerNet.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751865Ab0GVPhN (ORCPT ); Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:37:13 -0400 Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:36:59 +0200 Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:36:59 +0200 From: Volker Lendecke To: Linus Torvalds Cc: David Howells , Jan Engelhardt , linux-cifs@vger.kernel.org, linux-nfs@vger.kernel.org, samba-technical@lists.samba.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH 02/18] xstat: Add a pair of system calls to make extended file stats available [ver #6] Reply-To: Volker.Lendecke@SerNet.DE References: <20100715021709.5544.64506.stgit@warthog.procyon.org.uk> <20100715021712.5544.44845.stgit@warthog.procyon.org.uk> <30448.1279800887@redhat.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) Message-Id: Organization: SerNet GmbH, Goettingen, Germany Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1303 Lines: 30 On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 08:14:42AM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > # recent FreeBSD, NetBSD have creation timestamps called birthtime: > > AC_CHECK_MEMBERS([struct stat.st_birthtimespec.tv_nsec]) > > AC_CHECK_MEMBERS([struct stat.st_birthtime], AC_CHECK_MEMBERS([struct stat.st_birthtimensec])) > > > > and the supporting code around that. "birth" might also be > > where the "b" comes from :-) > > Oh wow. And all of this just convinces me that we should _not_ do any > of this, since clearly it's all totally useless and people can't even > agree on a name. > > Let's wait five years and see if there is actually any consensus on it > being needed and used at all, rather than rush into something just > because "we can". The nice thing about this is also that if this is supposed to be fully usable for Windows clients, the birthtime needs to be changeable. That's what NTFS semantics gives you, thus Windows clients tend to require it. Just as a hint, nothing that Linux should necessarily have to be bothered with, this is Samba's duty :-) Volker -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/