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what is the difference between st_ctime and st_mtime one is the time of last change and the other is the time of last modification, but i can not understand what is the difference between 'change' and 'modification'.

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  what is the difference between st_ctime and st_mtime one is the time of last change and the other is the time of last modification, but i can not understand what is the difference between 'change' and 'modification'. 陈伟 <chenwei.address@gmail.com> - 2012-09-28 06:12 -0700
    Re: what is the difference between st_ctime and st_mtime one is the time of last change and the other is the time of last modification, but i can not understand what is the difference between 'change' and 'modification'. Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2012-09-29 01:07 +1000
    Re: what is the difference between st_ctime and st_mtime one is the time of last change and the other is the time of last modification, but i can not understand what is the difference between 'change' and 'modification'. Christian Heimes <christian@python.org> - 2012-09-28 17:18 +0200
    Re: what is the difference between st_ctime and st_mtime one is the time of last change and the other is the time of last modification, but i can not understand what is the difference between 'change' and 'modification'. Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2012-09-29 01:25 +1000
    Re: what is the difference between st_ctime and st_mtime one is the time of last change and the other is the time of last modification, but i can not understand what is the difference between 'change' and 'modification'. Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2012-09-28 18:22 +0100
    Re: what is the difference between st_ctime and st_mtime one is the time of last change and the other is the time of last modification, but i can not understand what is the difference between 'change' and 'modification'. "Kristen J. Webb" <kwebb@teradactyl.com> - 2012-09-28 11:48 -0600
      Re: what is the difference between st_ctime and st_mtime one is the time of last change and the other is the time of last modification, but i can not understand what is the difference between 'change' and 'modification'. Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2012-09-29 20:24 +0100

#30383 — what is the difference between st_ctime and st_mtime one is the time of last change and the other is the time of last modification, but i can not understand what is the difference between 'change' and 'modification'.

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#30398

On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 11:12 PM, 陈伟 <chenwei.address@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

In future, can you put the body of your message into the body please? :)

ctime is creation time, not change time. mtime is modification time,
as you have. But I can understand where the confusion comes from;
Google tells me there've been documentation bugs involving this very
thing (and Google, being extremely Lawful Neutral, would have happily
told you the same thing if you'd asked).

ChrisA

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#30400

Am 28.09.2012 17:07, schrieb Chris Angelico:
> On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 11:12 PM, 陈伟 <chenwei.address@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> --
>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
> 
> In future, can you put the body of your message into the body please? :)
> 
> ctime is creation time, not change time. mtime is modification time,
> as you have. But I can understand where the confusion comes from;
> Google tells me there've been documentation bugs involving this very
> thing (and Google, being extremely Lawful Neutral, would have happily
> told you the same thing if you'd asked).

In the future please read the manual before replying! ;) You are wrong,
ctime is *not* the creation time. It's the change time of the inode.
It's updated whenever the inode is modified, e.g. metadata modifications
like permission changes, link/unlink of hard links etc.

Christian

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#30404

On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 1:18 AM, Christian Heimes <christian@python.org> wrote:
> Am 28.09.2012 17:07, schrieb Chris Angelico:
> In the future please read the manual before replying! ;) You are wrong,
> ctime is *not* the creation time. It's the change time of the inode.
> It's updated whenever the inode is modified, e.g. metadata modifications
> like permission changes, link/unlink of hard links etc.

Whoops, my bad! Sorry. I was remembering some other APIs with similar
terminology.

Lesson: Check the docs, they're more reliable.

ChrisA

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#30417

On Fri, 28 Sep 2012 06:12:35 -0700, 陈伟 wrote:

> what is the difference between st_ctime and st_mtime one is the time of
> last change and the other is the time of last modification, but i can
> not understand what is the difference between 'change' and 'modification'. 

st_mtime is updated when the file's contents change. st_ctime is updated
when the file's metadata (owner, group, permissions, link count, etc)
changes.

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#30419

The Windows stat() call treats things differently,

FROM: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/14h5k7ff%28v=vs.80%29.aspx

  st_ctime

     Time of creation of file. Valid on NTFS but not on FAT formatted disk drives.

I don't think that Windows has a concept of a "change time" for meta data
(though that would be nice).  How's that for compatibility ;)

NOTE: I am a C programmer and new to python, so can anyone comment
on what the st_ctime value is when os.stat() is called on Windows?

Kris
On 9/28/12 9:25 AM, Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 1:18 AM, Christian Heimes <christian@python.org> wrote:
>> Am 28.09.2012 17:07, schrieb Chris Angelico:
>> In the future please read the manual before replying! ;) You are wrong,
>> ctime is *not* the creation time. It's the change time of the inode.
>> It's updated whenever the inode is modified, e.g. metadata modifications
>> like permission changes, link/unlink of hard links etc.
>
> Whoops, my bad! Sorry. I was remembering some other APIs with similar
> terminology.
>
> Lesson: Check the docs, they're more reliable.
>
> ChrisA
>

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#30525

On Fri, 28 Sep 2012 11:48:23 -0600, Kristen J. Webb wrote:

> NOTE: I am a C programmer and new to python, so can anyone comment
> on what the st_ctime value is when os.stat() is called on Windows?

The documentation[1] says:

    st_ctime - platform dependent; time of most recent metadata change on
    Unix, or the time of creation on Windows) 

[1] http://docs.python.org/library/os#os.stat

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