id,summary,reporter,owner,description,type,status,priority,milestone,component,version,resolution,keywords,cc,launchpad_bug 628,"""mtime"" and ""ctime"": I don't think that word means what you think it means.",zooko,zooko,"Tahoe has ""mtime"" and ""ctime"" associated with the edges in the filesystem graph (the entries in a directory). Tahoe means by ""mtime"" the most recent time that the link was changed to point to a new node than it previously pointed to (""modify time""), and by ""ctime"" the most recent time that the link was created when there was previously no link under that name (""create time""). The traditional unix values ""mtime"" and ""ctime"" don't have these semantics. In Unix, mtime is the most recent time that the file contents changed, and ctime is the most recent time that the inode changed, which means that ''either'' the file contents changed or else the metadata (such as owner or permission bits) changed. (It is a common mistake to think that ""ctime"" in unix means create time.) The tahoe semantics are certainly more useful for Tahoe than unix semantics would be (since we don't have owners or permission bits, and since ""the most recent time this link was created when previously there was no link by that name"" is potentially useful). But if we're going to be deploying new semantics, let's deploy them under new names. How about if we just spell it out: ""create time"" and ""modify time"". That will also be understood by more people than abbreviations would.",defect,closed,major,1.4.1,code-dirnodes,1.3.0,fixed,,tahoe-dev@…,