Re[2]: More on daily backups..

MG> which datestamp? You have: (from 'man 2 stat')

MG> time_t        st_atime;    /* time of last access */
MG> time_t        st_mtime;    /* time of last modification */
MG> time_t        st_ctime;    /* time of last status change */

Er.. well, feel like an idiot but didn't even think of that. The
Modify stamp is the old (e.g. unchanged). The Status Change date,
however, is the date the file was dumped. This must be what tar is
picking up.


MG> btw, what kind of filesystem is this? And what timestamps are
MG> supported on that?

ext2

MG> It has been too long for me, but in the tar source you should be able to
MG> see what tar is using to decide what to backup.

I suppose I could... but I think you already answered my question
above.

>> just been sitting there for a day or week? If so, how else could I
>> avoid having these files re-backed up every day. It's making my daily
>> files about 70 megabytes bigger than needed.

MG> make the prerun script a lot smarter? :) maybe using 'stat' yourself on
MG> the dumped database file?

Well, something like that... my brief reading on touch tells me the
status change stamp can only be set to the current date stamp. So I
guess I need to recompile tar to use the mod time only or instead.

Thanks!