AWPSYS@RITVAXA.BITNET.UUCP (03/04/87)
Date: 3-Mar-1987 23:00 EST To: info-vax@ubvm From: AWPSYS@RITVAX.BITNET Subj: RMS and File dates. > About dates and RMS, I feel that RMS ought to be changed to support >four or five dates instead of the three now in use. RMS is NOT responsible for maintaining dates of files in VMS. This task is done by the file system ( F11BXQP ). The four dates maintained are: CREATED, MODIFIED (for both FILE and/or File HEADER modifications), EXPIRATION, and BACKUP. These dates are defined in the ODS-2 file system spec. Adding another date would most likely involve a change (possibly not upward compatible) to the spec. Expiration dates are active only when the disk volume has had expiration dates enabled with the /RETENTION qualifier on INITIALIZE or SET VOLUME. If you set the retention period to a relatively short period, (30 minutes or so) you can get the equivalent of a "access date" since a retention period is extended for an "expiring" file when it is accessed (for read, write or control). The cost to you for this is an extra seek to the index file header for many file accesses. Andrew Potter Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester NY AWPSYS@RITVAX.BITNET ritcv!ritulta!awpsys.UUCP