Access Time (atime)
A file's access time identifies when the file was most recently opened for reading. A running program can maintain a file as "open" for some time, so the time at which a file was opened may differ from the time data was most recently read from the file.
Access times are usually updated even if only a small portion of a large file is examined.
Because some computer configurations are much faster at reading data than at writing it, updating access times after every read operation can be very expensive. Some systems mitigate this cost by storing access times at a coarser granularity than other times; by rounding access times only to the nearest hour or day, a file which is read repeatedly in a short time frame will only need its access time updated once. Some systems also provide options to disable access time updating altogether.
Read more about this topic: MAC Times
Famous quotes containing the words access and/or time:
“The Hacker Ethic: Access to computers—and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works—should be unlimited and total.
Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!
All information should be free.
Mistrust authority—promote decentralization.
Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
You can create art and beauty on a computer.
Computers can change your life for the better.”
—Steven Levy, U.S. writer. Hackers, ch. 2, “The Hacker Ethic,” pp. 27-33, Anchor Press, Doubleday (1984)
“human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)