Re: [Boost-Users] Re: Why isn't the "last access time" part of the filesystem library?

richard_fanta wrote:

--- In Boost-Users@yahoogroups.com, "Ben Hutchings" wrote:

...

Access times are far from a universal OS feature,

On which specific (and hopefully widespread) examples do you base this?

FAT?

...

and updates to them may be disabled because the volume is read-only (whether or not the underlying medium is read-only) or purely to avoid the cost of updating them.

Even if the volume is read-only from one machine, it might still help to know when the file was last altered.

This is a misunderstanding. Last access time (struct stat::st_atime) and creation time (st_ctime) aren't universal. Modification time (st_mtime) is common, except on read-only filesystems, which typically only have ctime. Judging by your "last altered" remark, you mean mtime but call it "last access." I think that it would be entirely reasonable (and very useful - can avoid reading a file if it hasn't changed since last read) to provide mtime. On read-only filesystems, the creation time should be returned.