Re: [SPAM] date_modified vs date_changed in nautilus

["David Lodge" <dave cirt net>]

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 06:01:26 +0100, Alexander Shopov <ash contact bg>  
wrote:
> Does anyone have the slightest idea what is the difference between
> date_modified and date_changed in the following string?
>
> #: ../libnautilus-private/apps_nautilus_preferences.schemas.in.h:1
> msgid ""
> "A list of captions below an icon in the icon view and the desktop. "
> "The actual number of captions shown depends on the zoom level. "
> "Possible values are: \"size\", \"type\", \"date_modified\", "
> "\"date_changed\", \"date_accessed\", \"owner\", \"group\", "
> "\"permissions\", \"octal_permissions\" and \"mime_type\"."

This is to do with how dates are stored on Linux (and Unix). There are 3  
dates stored in the inode of each file system object:
Date modified (mtime): Last time the file contents were altered.
Date accessed (atime): Last time the file contents were viewed.
Date changed (ctime): Last time the inode for the file was changed.

The inode contains important meta-information about the file, such as the  
file permissions, the above time fields, the location of the file on the  
disk etc.

Hope that helps

dave