Skip Montanaro wrote:
[dir stat cache times]
I took a couple minutes to write a simple script to check things. It created a file, changed its mode, then unlinked it. I was a bit surprised that deleting a file didn't appear to change the directory's mod time. Then I realized that since file times are only recorded with one-second
Or two, on Windows with older (FAT, as opposed to VFAT) file systems.
precision, you might see no change to the directory's mtime in some circumstances. Adding a sleep to the script between directory operations resolved the apparent inconsistency. Still, as Gordon stated, you probably can't count on directory modtimes to tell you when to invalidate the cache. It's consistent, just not reliable...
if-we-slow-import-down-enough-we-can-use-this-trick-though-ly y'rs,
If the dir stat time is less than 2 seconds ago, flush - always. If the dir stat time says it hasn't been changed for at least 2 seconds then you can cache all entries and trust that any change is detected. In other words: take the *current* time into account, then it can work. I think. Maybe. Until you get into network drives and clock skew... -- Jean-Claude