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Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:33:21 -0400
From: Jason Tishler <jason AT tishler DOT net>
To: Cygwin-Developers <cygwin-developers AT sources DOT redhat DOT com>
Subject: Re: WriteFile() whacks st_atime patch
Message-ID: <20010918103321.B1332@dothill.com>
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In-Reply-To: <20010917183734.D10081@cygbert.vinschen.de>
User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.18i

Corinna,

On Mon, Sep 17, 2001 at 06:37:34PM +0200, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> since your both patches to set the file time will probably result in a
> performance loss

You are being too gentle, my proposed patches will definitely be a
performance hit.  The only question that remains is how much?

> and since only a few applications have a problem with
> the windows behaviour... what do you think about conditionalize your
> patch using a global flag (e.g. force_unix_ftime_behaviour) which is
> set to FALSE by default?

The above may be a good compromise.  However, this means that one must be
careful that *all* necessary apps are built appropriately.  For example,
the mutt maintainer (currently you) and the procmail maintainer (most
likely me) will have to both link against the proposed setftime.o.
Otherwise, the mailbox access times will not behave Posix-like.
Furthermore, if someone (occasionally) uses an apps not built
appropriately to access/process their mailbox files, then they may get
"transient," unexpected behavior.

At the risk of Chris's wrath...  Um, er, what about a new CYGWIN setting
so that my proposed patches can affect all apps or no apps?  In this
way, users can choose their policy -- strict Posix st_atime compliance
at the expense of performance or vice versa.

Thanks,
Jason

(pressing mutt's "y" from under his desk...)