[comp.os.vms] files date.

V4039@TEMPLEVM.BITNET (Stan Horwitz) (02/02/88)

  I am not very familiar with VAXen to say if it is possible to set the
date stored with each file.  Oh, if I am not mistaken, when you do a
dir /date=some date, it is not necessarily the creation date, but rather
the date it was last modified.

  In any case, it doesn't make much sense to want to change a file's dates.
Why would anyone want to do such a thing?

-------

cfchiesa@bsu-cs.UUCP (Sir Xetwnk) (02/11/88)

In article <8802091036.AA20109@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, V4039@TEMPLEVM.BITNET (Stan Horwitz) writes:
> 
>   I am not very familiar with VAXen to say if it is possible to set the
> date stored with each file.  

   Yes, you can, several different ways in fact.  One is to CONVERT/FDL the
file to a new file with all its attributes the same as that of the first file,
except for the particular date field (there are several) you want to change,
which you specify in the FDL file for the /FDL qualifier.

> 
>   In any case, it doesn't make much sense to want to change a file's dates.
> Why would anyone want to do such a thing?

Speaking as a student who has never actually done this, but who knows people
who HAVE, I'd have to say that the main reason people want to change that 
creation or modification date is to make a homework program assignment look
as though it was finished on time rather than late -- a lot of profs go by
the file-creation time, if there's any question... Most don't even do that 
much, prompting a friend of mine last year to create a file containing a per-
fect duplicate of a print-queue header page, which he prepended to a listing
file from which he'd edited out all the compilation errors.  He turned the 
whole thing in, along with a similarly faked output printout, and got pretty
good points for a program that wouldn't even compile...

I'm sure there may be other reasons for changing a file date, too... 

neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP (Paul Neubauer) (02/11/88)

In article <2072@bsu-cs.UUCP>, cfchiesa@bsu-cs.UUCP (Sir Xetwnk) writes:
+ In article <8802091036.AA20109@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, V4039@TEMPLEVM.BITNET (Stan Horwitz) writes:
+ >   In any case, it doesn't make much sense to want to change a file's dates.
+ > Why would anyone want to do such a thing?
+ 
+ Speaking as a student who has never actually done this, but who knows people
+ who HAVE, I'd have to say that the main reason people want to change that 
+ creation or modification date is to make a homework program assignment look
+ as though it was finished on time rather than late -- a lot of profs go by
+ 
+ I'm sure there may be other reasons for changing a file date, too... 

I am sure that some people may want to predate a file for reasons like that,
but I can also think of at least one legitimate reason for wanting to change
a file's date (to later).  That is something like the *nix touch utility
that is used along with make.  Rather than actually modifying the file
itself, a VMS touch utility could simply change the date to force CMS, MMS
or some other make-type utility to recompile it.

-- 
Paul Neubauer         neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP
                      <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!neubauer

jeh@crash.cts.com (Jamie Hanrahan) (02/12/88)

On a system that is rebooted frequently... especially with bootstraps of
other operating systems in the interim... the system TimeOfYear clock will
often get munged, causing VMS to prompt for the date and time when it comes
up.  Within about two to three weeks of the start of each new year, it is
common for people to enter the wrong year in this date/time string.  The
system runs fine but the erroneous timestamps play Hob with accounting, 
make/MMS/etc., and so on... It's useful to be able to change the timestamps
on files created during the "time warp".

ca053@unocss.UUCP (Tim Russell) (02/13/88)

In article <2076@bsu-cs.UUCP>, neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP (Paul Neubauer) writes:
>
> I am sure that some people may want to predate a file for reasons like that,
> but I can also think of at least one legitimate reason for wanting to change
> a file's date (to later).  That is something like the *nix touch utility
> that is used along with make.  Rather than actually modifying the file
> itself, a VMS touch utility could simply change the date to force CMS, MMS
> or some other make-type utility to recompile it.
> 

    Another VERY good reason, and I'm sure Rahul's, is to restore the original
date to a file extracted from an archive, such as Zoo. Just about every
other system in the world supports changing file dates, so I would hope there's
a halfway easy way to do it in VMS as well...


                                        Tim Russell
                                        The University of Nebraska at Omaha

cmf@cisunx.UUCP (Carl M. Fongheiser) (02/21/88)

Any professor who depends on any file date stored by the VMS file system is
making a BIG mistake.  Why?  You don't even have to make a copy of the file
to change one of the dates.  Granted, RMS won't let you do it, but the ACP
(renamed the XQP) is quite happy to let you do it.  I don't have it handy,
but all the details are explained in the I/O User's Guide.

					Carl Fongheiser
					University of Pittsburgh
					...!pitt!cisunx!cmf
					cmf@pittvms.BITNET
					cmf%vms.cis.pittsburgh.edu@vb.cc.cmu.edu

cfchiesa@bsu-cs.UUCP (Sir Xetwnk) (02/25/88)

In article <7080@cisunx.UUCP>, cmf@cisunx.UUCP (Carl M. Fongheiser) writes:
> Any professor who depends on any file date stored by the VMS file system is
> making a BIG mistake.  Why?  You don't even have to make a copy of the file
> to change one of the dates.  Granted, RMS won't let you do it, but the ACP
> (renamed the XQP) is quite happy to let you do it.  I don't have it handy,
> but all the details are explained in the I/O User's Guide.

For a University faculty (I assume) member, you seem remarkably well informed!
Around here, it would boggle the minds of most people to find out that it was
even possible.  Besides that, next to nobody here reaches the level of knowing
how to do it until they're beyond the point in the curriculum where they'd
WANT to do it.  And telling most people around here that "it's in the manuals"
(which are ALL available for public access) generates the same response as if
you'd said "they're carved in Swahili on the pinnacle of a mountain in 
Timbuktu."  The profs HERE are fairly safe on this particular matter, in MOST 
cases.  

Chris Chiesa, Senior, Ball State University, Muncie, IN

 

-- 
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Chris Chiesa <><><><><>
<> {ihpn4|seismo}!{iuvax|pur-ee}!bsu-cs!cfchiesa                              <>
<> cfchiesa@bsu-cs.UUCP                                                       <>
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