Return-Path: Received: from smtp1.linux-foundation.org ([140.211.169.13]:48444 "EHLO smtp1.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751343Ab0GVPQI convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:16:08 -0400 In-Reply-To: References: <20100715021709.5544.64506.stgit@warthog.procyon.org.uk> <20100715021712.5544.44845.stgit@warthog.procyon.org.uk> <30448.1279800887@redhat.com> From: Linus Torvalds Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 08:14:42 -0700 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [PATCH 02/18] xstat: Add a pair of system calls to make extended file stats available [ver #6] To: Volker.Lendecke@sernet.de 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 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Sender: linux-nfs-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 5:17 AM, Volker Lendecke wrote: > On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 01:14:47PM +0100, David Howells wrote: >> Jan Engelhardt wrote: >> >> > Linux already has a creation time field, it's called otime (there is no "b" >> > in "creation"), and you will find scattered fragments of that all over the >> > kernel (foremost, fs/jfs/, now btrfs, and I also notice sysvipc having >> > something with that name). >> >> It is? ?It's called crtime in Ext4. ?st_btime, however, would be compatible >> with BSD's stat, and Samba would just use it by way of autoconf magic if it >> appeared. > > Samba has the following check: > > # 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". Linus