Re: Tar 1.13 patch

[Paul Eggert]

> From: Richard Rognlie <address@hidden>
> Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 15:01:38 -0500
> 
> Here is a patch for GNU tar 1.13 which allows you to specify a filename
> that when stat()ed returns the timestamp.  The patch essentially checks
> to see if optarg (the date) is a file first, if that fails, it defaults
> to it's normal behaviour.  If the stat() succeeds, it uses the st.st_mtime
> as the timestamp.

Thanks for the suggestion.

I don't like invoking 'stat' regardless, since it means a file whose
name happens to match a date string will change the meaning of the
date string.

Instead, I think I'll change things so that if the date starts with
'@', the rest of the date can be treated as a file name whose
last-modified time is what is wanted; otherwise the date can be
parsed.