Rob: Q: dir() + flaw discovered with time stamps
Rob,
I hate to bother you with this but I just discovered a potential flaw with the
current dir() method used with the include system. It can be taken care of but
requires futher enhancement to dir(). This isn't critical, but it has the
potential to reduce accuracy alot more often than I'd like.
Let me explain:
It seems that when I download ZIP or TAR files from the archive and extract them
to my compuer, all the files' time stamps change to exactly the same. Whats
awkward though is different parts of the stamps change with different extraction
software.
Example:
When I extract a ZIP file using Windows XP's default ZIP extraction utility with
"Extract All", it will change the "Modified" and "Accessed" stamps to exact the
same current time and date; the "Created" stamp isn't effected. However when I
use WinRAR to extract, the "Created" and "Accessed" stamp is affected on all the
extracted files but not "Modified".
This is an issue because dir() returns the "Modified" time-stamp and if in one
case all the extracted files have their "Modified" stamp changed to the exact
same date and time, then it will effectively reduce accuracy with duplicate file
detection in IncludePush(). What this means is that the accuracy will now only be
filename, attribute, and filesize. The problem is this can be a common occurance
if extracted a certain way.
I cannot explain this behavior but will note that if a "Created" time-stamp was
added into the dir() result, it should bypass the issue. If one stamp is changed
to exactly the same, it could rely on the unaffected stamp for additional
accuracy and visa versa.
My question is how difficult would it be to add a "Created" time-stamp set into
the dir() result on all platforms? What about an "Accessed" time-stamp set?
Perhaps you could add both for completeness and even higher overall accuracy?
Doing this will also make needing to enhance dir() in the foreseeable future
unnescesary. I bet if you knew this before, you wouldn't have implemented the
include fix. But please don't take it away, just add another time-stamp set or
two to the bottom of the dir() result.
So now maybe dir() would return this info in this order:
1) file name
2) attribute
3) byte size
4) year modified
5) month modified
6) day modified
7) hour modified
8) minute modified
9) second modified
10) year accessed
11) month accessed
12) day accessed
13) hour accessed
14) minute accessed
15) second accessed
16) year created
17) month created
18) day created
19) hour created
20) minute created
21) second created
Or perhaps leave out the "Accessed" time-stamp?
Regards,
Vincent
|
Not Categorized, Please Help
|
|
