(not sure whether this is "Library" or "Documentation") The docstring of posixpath.getctime calls ctime the "creation time". This is incorrect, because it is the "change time". The library documentation is correct here. This patch fixes the docstring.
Logged In: YES user_id=671362 > IIRC, it is creation time on some platforms and is the > change time on others. This was discussed before. [ 827902 ] ctime is not creation time http://www.python.org/sf/827902
Logged In: YES user_id=13298 The docstring is a different issue: The standard library needs to be accurate for all platforms, whereas each platform has it's own implementation of os.path.getctime. Hence, it's possible to give each platform it's own docstring for os.path.getctime, so that posixpath.getctime.__doc__ != ntpath.getctime.__doc__. Is this it a good thing to have different docstrings? If so, I'd say that each platform documents for it's own getctime what ctime means. If not, I'd say we copy the standard library documentation.
Logged In: YES user_id=671362 Yes, your're right. The library document of os.path.ctime was fixed, but the docstring of posixpath.py has been left unchanged. So I'm +1 for applying this patch. I've noticed that there are still several places where the definition of ctime is not fixed. For example, stat.st_ctime and os.stat. http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-stat.html > ST_CTIME : Time of last status change (see manual pages for details). http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/os-file-dir.html > st_ctime (time of most recent content modification or metadata change). In my opinion, these two also need to be corrected.
Logged In: YES user_id=3066 I've committed a variation of the patch ("metadata" instead of "mode", since that's closer to what's described in the man pages on my machine), and also updated the descriptions for os.stat() and stat.ST_CTIME. Doc/lib/libos.tex 1.135, 1.127.10.4 Doc/lib/libstat.tex 1.24, 1.23.10.1 Lib/posixpath.py 1.65, 1.62.6.1
