Re: An experiment about file timestamp
Rodolfo Medina wrote:
> Chris Jackson <c.jackson@shadowcat.co.uk> writes:
>
>> File timestamps are (or at least should be) stored in UTC. It's the
>> display of them that's affected.
>
>
>
> But I did the following experiment: on a computer with system time set to UTC,
> I created a file at 14:43 UTC. Then I copied it via rsync and ethernet cross
> cable to another PC with system time set to GMT, one hour late respect to UTC.
> I expected that, on the 2nd PC, the timestamp was displayed in the local time,
> i.e. 15:43; instead, it appears as 14:43 as well. (For the copy I used the -t
> option.)
>
> So, according with this experiment it is not true that the displayed time is in
> local format.
>
> I think this may cause serious errors: in fact, when someone read the timestamp
> on the 2nd PC, he would believe that the file were created at 14:43 of the GMT
> time, which is wrong: in fact, it was created at 15:43 GMT = 14:43 UTC.
>
> What do you all think?
>
> Rodolfo
>
>
GMT, as far as a computer is concerned, is the same as UTC. The
difference is that GMT is a solar time and may be up to a second
different, however since computers don't make solar observations,
they're the same in implementation, and many people use them loosely to
mean the same thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time
Paragraph 4 of the introduction, plus discussion under "History".
Are you thinking of British Summer Time, a form of daylight saving time,
which ended last weekend anyway so the UK is now on GMT?
The question about FAT filesystems is a different one as Camaleon
observes, however. I misunderstood in my original mail.
--
Chris Jackson
Shadowcat Systems Ltd.
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