But if you rely on these subtleties this is hardly a "basic feature" that the language is lacking. In fact, I imagine File.Exists()/OF_EXISTS also opens the file (then immediately closes it).
If you actually open a file, you update it's access time, and you interfere with the process that should actually open the file. Those both break perfectly simple business logic.
If you want to get the access time, why don't you just query the access time? Which is likely the only thing almost universally guaranteed not to change it... And I'm sure VB6 has an API for that, considering that VBA had a global API for it (FileDateTime).
(Which is, btw, yet another way to one-line check if a file exists).
The way you probably did in your now-deleted comment claiming that stat() updated atime?
Citation needed. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.io.file.... doesn't warn of any such thing.
No.
> Citation needed. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.io.file.... doesn't warn of any such thing.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winbase/...
OF_EXIST: Opens a file and then closes it.
OpenFile() opens the file??? c'est incroyable!
OF_EXISTS is just a side effect of some actual operation. It's some related info you you get along the way. You would not use that as the way to only check the file. Holy cow. Please do continue trying to spread the wisom.
> In fact, I imagine File.Exists()/OF_EXISTS also opens the file (then immediately closes it).
I never said any such thing.
Yet another trivially verified false statement. Fits the pattern.
If you didn't say any such thing, then why did you bother countering my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42107195 ? Aha! Gotcha!
I never said, either explicitly nor implicitly, that File.Exists() modifies access time.
There is nothing there in that comment nor it's parent.
OF_EXISTS is not a thing by itself. It does not "open a file and then close it" which is a ridiculous and incorrect thing you DID actually say. OF_EXISTS is just a bitmask flag that can be returned by several functions, including ones that open files.
You have said a continuos string of incorrect things and employed invalid logic this whole time, and this yet again fits.
correction: you said opens a file and closes it about OF_EXIST the bitmask flag to tell OpenFile() how you want to open it. Slightly less ridiculous, yet still not a thing that opens a file, OpenFile() opens the file.