fix: prevent readFile from updating ctime when only accessing files #1179
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This PR fixes an issue where
readFile
andreadFileSync
incorrectly updated bothatime
(access time) andctime
(change time) when reading files. According to POSIX standards and real Node.js behavior, reading a file should only updateatime
, notctime
.Problem
The issue occurred because:
atime
setter inNode.ts
automatically updatedctime
wheneveratime
was setgetBuffer()
calledsetBuffer()
when initializing empty buffers, which triggeredtouch()
and updated bothmtime
andctime
This caused memfs to behave differently from the native Node.js
fs
module:Solution
Core fixes:
ctime
update from theatime
setter insrc/core/Node.ts
getBuffer()
to directly initialize empty buffers without callingsetBuffer()
(which was triggering unnecessarytouch()
calls)Test updates:
readFile
/readFileSync
ctime behaviorResult
readFile
andreadFileSync
now correctly update onlyatime
when reading filesctime
is only updated for actual metadata/content changes (chmod, chown, write operations, etc.)The changes are minimal and surgical, affecting only the specific timestamp update logic without changing any other filesystem behavior.
Fixes #1177.
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