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ISSUE This issue results in the loss of data in the form of operating system file and folder modified date/time stamp records. WHAT HAPPEN The timestamp of all source files and folders change to the current date and time when moving a project from within NetBeans. WHAT I EXPECTED When moving a project to a different location on the local PC, I expected the modified date and time stamp of all files, possibly also folders (directories) to be preserved. While I can't think if any reason this should not be possible, if it isn't, there should be some kind of warning telling the user the modified date of all of their files and folders is going to be reset to the current date. WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT I rely heavily on date/timestamps and this side effect of the move was unexpected and took me several hours and I only manager to get most of it back the to the way it was before the move. STEPS TO REPRODUCE Note that this process can be extremely slow for larger projects. Please be patient. 1) Create a new project with the NetBeans project file in the same folder as existing source code. 2) Right-click on the project you want to move in the "projects" tab and then click "move". 3) Enter a new location and click Move. 4) Once the process is done, notice that the date and time stamp of all of the files will have changed.
Created attachment 147296 [details] Partial Fix
The attached patch works only if the project uses no version control system. If some versioning is used by the project, moving is handled by a VCSInterceptor, which would need to be updated as well to set the last-modified time correctly. I've noticed that FileSystemInterceptor in git module contains this method: copyDirFiles(File sourceDir, File targetDir, boolean preserveTimestamp) This method is called from method doCopy with parameter preserveTimestamp = false. I guess there can be a good reason for this (probably performance). Ondra, is calling this method with preserveTimestamp = true risky? Can versioning modules be safely updated to preserve timestamps when copying files? Thank you. > I rely heavily on date/timestamps and this side effect of the move was unexpected and > took me several hours and I only manager to get most of it back the to the way it was > before the move. It seems quite risky to me. Various tools (other than NetBeans) can update last-modified time unexpectedly. I would recommend using some VCS whenever it is applicable. It can track history of changes and offers many other benefits. Not sure this is P1, as only meta-data were lost. And last-modified time can be considered as quite a fragile piece of meta-data. Thank you for reporting.
> The attached patch works only if the project uses no version control system. > If some versioning is used by the project, moving is handled by a VCSInterceptor, which would need to be updated as well to set the last-modified time correctly. > I've noticed that FileSystemInterceptor in git module contains this method: > copyDirFiles(File sourceDir, File targetDir, boolean preserveTimestamp) > This method is called from method doCopy with parameter preserveTimestamp = false. > I guess there can be a good reason for this (probably performance). > Ondra, is calling this method with preserveTimestamp = true risky? > Can versioning modules be safely updated to preserve timestamps when copying files? It makes sense to keep timestamp for moves/renames, but for copies? Are you sure it's the right way? I am not so convinced. Much more straightforward would be to call move instead of copy+delete. But i guess all versioning modules could be forced to keep the timestamp for copies if necessary. > Not sure this is P1, as only meta-data were lost. And last-modified time can be considered as quite a fragile piece of meta-data. sounds like a P4 to me, especially in case of renaming a project via UI. If the reporter is interested in keeping all timestamp i suggest renaminhg/moving in the favorites view.
http://hg.netbeans.org/core-main/rev/eb47861d08e2 Fixed. Thank you.
fix: http://hg.netbeans.org/core-main/rev/725e98325c77
Integrated into 'main-silver', will be available in build *201407190718* on http://bits.netbeans.org/dev/nightly/ (upload may still be in progress) Changeset: http://hg.netbeans.org/main-silver/rev/eb47861d08e2 User: Jaroslav Havlin <jhavlin@netbeans.org> Log: #244286: Moving a project does not preserve file and folder timestamps The copy operation is used internally during move. To recognize that the copy is called from a move (without API changes), new thread local variable was introduced. If this variable is set to true, the last-modified date of the target file is set after copying. Using NIO2, which could make the implementation simpler, should be considered for the next release.