rename updates ctime. The glibc manual says otherwise.

[Jorge Morais]

glibc manual (both in the glibc included with Ubuntu 14.10 and also in upstream glibc from git on 2014-01-23) at 14.9.9 File Times says:

"Renaming a file with 'rename' affects only the attribute change time and modification time fields of the two parent directories involved, and not the times for the file being renamed."

But in practice (tested on Ubuntu 14.10) renaming a file does change its ctime. I have checked it both at the command line and also with the small program attached.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.10
Package: libc6 2.19-10ubuntu2.2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.16.0-29.39-generic 3.16.7-ckt2
Uname: Linux 3.16.0-29-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.7-0ubuntu8.1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Fri Jan 23 10:24:24 2015
Dependencies:
 gcc-4.9-base 4.9.1-16ubuntu6
 libc6 2.19-10ubuntu2.2
 libgcc1 1:4.9.1-16ubuntu6
 multiarch-support 2.19-10ubuntu2.2
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-10-23 (91 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140722.2)
SourcePackage: glibc
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to utopic on 2015-01-15 (7 days ago)

[Kjetil Torgrim Homme (kjetilho)]

glibc is not only for Linux. POSIX allows either behaviour, see

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/rename.html

APPLICATION USAGE

    Some implementations mark for update the st_ctime field of renamed files and some do not. Applications which make use of the st_ctime field may behave differently with respect to renamed files unless they are designed to allow for either behavior.