Re: [TCLCORE] Re: TIP#2: TIP Guidelines

[Donald G P. <dg...@em...>]

> Hence i send you this TIP:

Hello Agnar,

Thanks for your interest in improving Tcl.  Our usual
TIP Editor, Donal Fellows is on travel, so I'll step
in and help get your proposal into the system.

First, let me point out a few things, then I'll give
you a chance to make any revisions you might want
before we send the proposal out for more public
comment.  You'll be able to continue making revisions
as comments come in as well.

> The following option is added to the ''file'' command.
> 
> | file ctime ''name'' ?ctime?
...
> ~ Rationale
> 
> All file systems associate a creation time to each file.  It should be
> possible to obtain this date using Tcl.

1) Are you aware that the same information is available
   already via the [file stat] command ?
   
   file stat $fileName array
   set createTime $array(ctime)
   
2)a) Is there really a need to be able to set the
     creation time of a file?  Seems to me that's the
     filesystem's job, part of the housekeeping when
     we [open] a new file.
     
2)b) If there is a need, is this a capability that
     is available across platforms/filesystems?
     
3) We've created the [file attributes] command as a
   gathering place for getting/setting file metadata
   in ways that are not portable.  If your needs aren't
   portable, I'd suggest a revision to propose new
   options to [file attributes] where they work.
   
Thanks again for the submission.  Let me know how you want to
proceed.

| Don Porter          Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division |
| don...@ni...             Information Technology Laboratory |
| http://math.nist.gov/~DPorter/                                  NIST |
|______________________________________________________________________|