Sorting of folders

[Jon LaBadie]

On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 09:02:37PM +0100, Chris Green wrote:
>On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 02:54:29PM -0400, Jon LaBadie wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 11:06:25AM +0100, Chris Green wrote:
[snip]
>>
>> The date you see with an "ls -l" is called "mtime", time of last
>> modification of the entries data.  If it happens to match your
>> directories time of creation (which is not stored) it is coincidence.
>>
>> For a directory, its data is the list of files it contains.  So mtime
>> should change whenever an entry is added or removed.  Note, renaming
>> and entry is typically add an entry, the new name as a link, then
>> unlink the old name.
>>
>> Try sorting the directories according to mtime with ls -lt (or -ltr
>> for reverse order).
>>
>You've missed the point (I think), in a maildir the directories whose
>mtime dates change are the cur, new and tmp directories.  The parent
>directory whose name is the mailbox name never changes mtime (unless
>you do something other than adding or removing messages).  The maildir
>directory doesn't contain any files that change, only cur, new and tmp
>directories.
>

Obviously I don't use maildir :)

I {over}reacted to what I suspected was a common misconception
about "c"reate time being retained.

Sorry for the noise,
Jon

-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                 jon at labadie.us
  11226 South Shore Rd.          (703) 787-0688 (H)
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