Re: [PATCH] cygcheck -m, --check-mtimes option

[Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin at cygwin dot com>]

On Aug  8 12:31, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> Hi Christian,
> 
> On Aug  7 22:15, Christian Franke wrote:
> > Attached is an experimental patch which adds -m, --check-mtimes[=SECONDS]
> > option to cygcheck. It provides an IMO useful heuristics to find files
> > possibly modified after installation.
> > 
> > "cygcheck -c -m" prints the number of files with st_mtime >
> > INSTALL_TIME+SECONDS. INSTALL_TIME is the st_mtime of the
> > /etc/setup/PACKAGE.lst.gz file.
> > 
> > With -v, the affected path names are printed. The optional parameter SECONDS
> > defaults to 600 to hide files modified by postinstall scripts.
> 
> That's an interesting idea.  I just gave it a try.  I think this might
> be useful,

On second thought, the modification date isn't very meaningful all by
itself, is it?  In theory it's only meaningful if the file has changed
as well.  Consider, what is the user supposed to do with the information
that the file modification date has changed?  Where does the user go
from there?

So I'm wondering if the st_mtime check isn't just a starting
point for a test for a file change.  OTOH, we have a problem there.
The rudimentary package database in /etc/setup is not very helpful.
It only contains filenames, but no other information on the files.

What would be really cool:  Setup generates the package info files in
/etc/setup with additional file size and md5 (sha1, sha256, you name it)
checksum.  Then cygcheck could test if st_mtime, st_size and the
checksum match.  Or, in a first step, just store and check the file
size.


What do you think?
Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Maintainer                 cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat

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