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On 7/18/06, Adam Shelly <adam.shelly / gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 7/18/06, Robert Dober <robert.dober / gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 7/18/06, Adam Shelly <adam.shelly / gmail.com> wrote:
> > >     TimeStrFormat = "date -s %H:%M:%S"
> > >   ...
> > >     system(t.strftime(TimeStrFormat))
> >
> > Dangerous !!!!
> > Just do not do this, you have to be root to do it anyway, but if you do
> it
> > say good bye to your filesystems, databases etc. etc.
> >
> oops. It's been about 10 years since I used Unix regularly, and I was
> never the sysadmin.
>
> I suppose this is offtopic, but why would it mess up the filesystem?
> I realize if you leave the time set in the past you'll run into
> problems with file creation/modification times, but the testscript
> restores the time to its original point - where's the lasting harm in
> that?


Actually I am not clever enough to know myself, I suppose you are pretty
safe on a client box of your own.
It all depends on the implementation of the file system.
My knowledge comes from an excellent NTP tutorial, quite normal for them to
warn about it.
http://www.ntp.org/ntpfaq/ Warning: Totally Offtopic.

But I would not assume that all system software is robust against not
contigous time. (think about cronjobs e.g. who would write them reentrant, I
would not !!)

I did not mean to criticise your Quiz submission BTW, quit nice and original
but not safe I am afraid.

Cheers
Robert

I didn't seem to suffer any permanent side effects after running it on
> WinXP.
>
> -Adam
>
>


-- 
Deux choses sont infinies : l'univers et la bóŐise humaine ; en ce qui
concerne l'univers, je n'en ai pas acquis la certitude absolue.

- Albert Einstein

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