Re: MUAs and timestamps, was Re: how to grep without changing timestamps?

[Erdmut Pfeifer <e.pfeifer@science-computing.de>]

On Fri, Jan 12, 2001 at 02:11:58PM +0000, David Wright wrote:
> 
> (...)
> 
> The idea that mutt should have to scan all my inboxes to determine
> whether I have new mail is bad enough; the idea that the inboxes
> should be rewritten (not even just appended to) would be crazy.

right, I'd definitely agree!

> The status quo is automatic (that's how timestamps work), lightweight
> and works. If you must grep your active inboxes, it seems a small price
> to pay to have to reapply the access timestamps.


a small wrapper script (in Perl -- I know one could do that in at least
25 other languages as well ;-) to restore timestamps after running some
program over a set of files might look something like:


#!/usr/bin/perl

while ($ARGV[$c] =~ /^-/) {$c++};  # find first 'non-option'
@files = @ARGV[++$c..$#ARGV];      # filelist begins after search-regex
# (extraction of filelist from commandline might need to be improved...)

# get atime/mtime for all files
foreach $f (@files) {
    push @times, [(stat $f)[8,9], $f];  # 8: atime, 9: mtime
}

# run your favourite grep or whatever here:
system "grep @ARGV";

# restore atime/mtime for all files
foreach $f (@times) { utime @$f; }



You would call it more or less like grep. Assuming you name it mygrep:

  mygrep [options] search-regex files...

Cheers,
Erdmut


-- 
Erdmut Pfeifer
science+computing gmbh

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