[TUHS] Re: When/how did ctime change from inode "creation" to "change" time?

Or perhaps the comment was wrong? I do remember being confused by it. -rob On Wed, Mar 12, 2025 at 1:19???PM Theodore Ts'o <tytso(a)mit.edu> wrote: > As part of a discusion on the Linux kernel mailing list, there was an > assertion that ctime was orginally "creation time". > > From the v7 sources in TUHS, we can see: > > struct dinode > { > unsigned short di_mode; /* mode and type of file */ > short di_nlink; /* number of links to file */ > short di_uid; /* owner's user id */ > short di_gid; /* owner's group id */ > off_t di_size; /* number of bytes in file */ > char di_addr[40]; /* disk block addresses */ > time_t di_atime; /* time last accessed */ > time_t di_mtime; /* time last modified */ > time_t di_ctime; /* time created */ > }; > > ... although the v7 kernel sources does seem to update ctime when the > inode metadata changes, regardless of what the coment in > /usr/src/sys/h/ino.h might say. > > More interestingly, this comment seems to continue in newer versions > up to 3BSD, and then the comments becomes "change time" in BSD 4.2, > probably coincident with the File System Implementation? > > The best we can guess is that the change from "creation time" to > "inode change time" happened sometime between 1979 and 1982. Does > anyone who was around can give the story about how and when this > happened? > > - Ted >