1) Can 'stat' be used to get information about directories?
Assuming that directory is a speacial kind of file on Linux, I think yes. Any comments?

2) I used 'stat' on a directory in my program. It doesnt seem to work very well when files are written very fast.
Example:-
here is an output:
Directory Last modified on 1145355520
/home/work/av2/file1.log Last modified on 1145355533
/home/work/av2/file2.log Last modified on 1145355534
/home/work/av2/file2.log Last modified on 1145355535

Here 1145355520 is the directory's "st_mtime" and 1145355533, 1145355534 and 1145355535 are "st_mtime" of the files in that directory.

Any comments/suggestions?

Thanks,
Nav.

Why don't you just try? (And yes, it can be used on directories)

What do you mean by "files are written very fast"?

So what's wrong about that? Read the man page of stat(2).

Tried.


Means the files were written back to back at a high speed, 3 huge files in about 2-3 seconds.

Directory last modified at 1145355520 (less than 1145355533, 1145355534 and 1145355535). Directory's last modified time is less than the last modified times of the files in the directory.
Shouldnt directory's timestamp be 1145355535?
If not, is there a way I can find if the contents of directory have changed without doing a "readdir()"?

Again, read the man page.

Thanks for that info. I can take it from here.

See fcntl(2) and seach for F_NOTIFY.

Note that for directories to be updated there must be a change in the directory inode contents. They are the file's name and its inode number. See "man 2 readdir". A cosmetic change to a file doesn't necessarily update the dir's inode. Also, check that no "noatime" option is in /etc/fstab entry of the filesystem that contains the directory. It may be a performance optimization that this metadata is saved later.

Thanks. This works better