atime, ctime, mtime, what time?

Waldher, Travis R Travis.R.Waldher at boeing.com
Fri Mar 28 18:04:00 UTC 2008


What changes need to occur to affect each time on a file or directory?
So far I have:

Atime:
	read a file
	modify the permissions
	modify the ownership
	create new file

Ctime:
	modify the permissions
	modify the ownership
	modify the first level of contents of a directory
	create new file

Mtime:
	modify the contents of a file
	create new file

This is based of the googling and limited testing I have done.

Which begs a question, wiki, for what it's worth, states that if a
permission or ownership change is made that both the atime and ctime
will be modified.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stat_(Unix)

How can a ctime be newer than an atime?

Thanks,
Travis





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