[Dovecot] Deleting messages from MailDir

[Bill Cole]

At 11:53 PM +0100 2/13/08, mouss  imposed structure on a stream of 
electrons, yielding:
>Bill Cole wrote:

[...]

>>Not on all filesystems. Note what HFS+ (MacOS) does:
>>
>>~ $ ls -lc foo
>>-rwxr-xr-x   1 wkc  wkc  332 Jan 29 03:32 foo
>>~ $ mkdir foodir
>>~ $ mv foo foodir
>>~ $ ls -lc foodir/foo
>>-rwxr-xr-x   1 wkc  wkc  332 Jan 29 03:32 foodir/foo
>>~ $ date
>>Wed Feb 13 08:39:24 EST 2008
>>
>>
>
>The question is whether this is because of an fs limitation or is it 
>for compatibility with some old tools.
>
>Posix says:
>
>Upon successful completion, /rename/() shall mark for update the 
>/st_ctime/ and /st_mtime/ fields of the parent directory of each 
>file.
>
>
>and ctime is the last status change time. AFAICT, an mv is certainly 
>a status change.
>
>
>but maybe I disgress:)

Since nothing but your POSIX quote refers to the ctime of the parent 
directory, maybe so. :)

I think that when you rename() (i.e. 'mv') a file, its ctime should 
change, if only because that is what traditional (e.g. UFS) 
filesystems do. I know better than to argue technical issues like 
that with Apple, just as I know better than to use my head to 
dismantle a brick wall, with the main difference being that I've 
never actually made the brick wall attempt.

But the relevant point is that Dovecot itself seems untroubled by this oddity.



-- 
Bill Cole                                  
bill at scconsult.com