AbstractBasicFileAttributeView.java (version 1.5 : 49.0, super bit)

[Alan Bateman]

Helmut Schwigon wrote:
> Hallo Allan,
> lot of thanks for Your prompt answer!
> I run in this problem while I tried to implement an automatic test case generator for a file filter. I think this is a rare application and not a real problem for the rest of the world. 
> On the other hand I can't see any important reason why dates in the past before 01.01.1970 00:00:00 UTC will be handled different from dates in the future even if it is needed in very rare cases only.
>
> Helmut
>   
There isn't any technical reason and you are right that it is an 
inconsistency (Eamonn McManus also pointed point this inconsistency when 
reviewing the API). It requires a bit of thought and it may be that the 
only thing we can do is allow it and specify that attempting to set a 
time stamp to a value that pre-dates the file system/volume results in 
undefined behavior. It is easy to find examples of operating systems and 
file system combinations where it results in the file's time stamp being 
set to the epoch, or where it silently wraps around and sets it to some 
time in the future, or where it fails (by throwing an IOException). 
Thanks again for bringing this up.

-Alan.