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Number   :  322
Date     :  2001-07-04
Author   :  Kan Yabumoto
Subject  :  Re: /DB:xxM switch
Size(KB) :  3



Julio:

You are absolutely correct. XXCOPY's /DB# switch was not doing exactly
what it was supposed to do. It had a bug which behaved a little funny.
The bug was introduced when we added a suffix letter which allows you to 
specify the age by not only by the days but also by hours, minutes or
even seconds. That was mid February (v.2.55.0)

This bug was only with /DB#, not with /DA#. Also, this bug affects the
age value you specify in non-day value (hrs, min, or sec).

If you examine the way /DB# switch counts the file age by days, you
will know why and you could even use the "broken" /DB# switch.

That is, when you say /DB#0 (0 means today and it's inclusive),
it includes files that are made all day today. That is, the
cut-off point was made at midnight tomorrow. Yes, the future
time is the reference point for 0th day. So, /DB#1 will be
interpreted as files that are older than 24 hours which is
measured from midnight tomorrow (that is today's midnight).

----------------------------------------------------------------
Note: I don't really know what is the official definition
of which day a midnight belongs. But, for the explanation
here, I'm using the word Midnight as the first moment of a day.
----------------------------------------------------------------

So, the /DB# bug added the age by the remaining time left for
today. For example, if you say /DB#10H, that should be interpreted
as 10 hours earlier from now. But, the bug made XXCOPY to use the
value 10 hours plus the remaining hours in today (depending on when
you invoke this command). If you used this at Noon today, then,
you had 12 hours within today and therefore, XXCOPY would select
files that are 22 hours old or older (10 + 12 = 22). The same
thing is true for the age specified by minutes, or seconds.
Anyway, the silly offset made this feature VERY DIFFICULT TO USE!!!

In short, the bug was caused by forgetting the fact we had this
special midnight-correction added for /DB# cases.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, that is the (unnecessary and boring) explanation of this bug.
Of course, we don't want any of you to use the command even
though you could use it with some compensation technique.

The good news is, the bug is now gone from the new version.
It has already been posted on our web page.

http://www.xxcopy.com/betatest/ (for v.2.57.0)

If you don't use the /DB# switch, you may defer your update
until the next big thing comes along. But, if you have not
downloaded v.2.56.9, then we suggest to get the newest one
because it fixed several bugs (all are pretty minor ones).

Kan Yabumoto
=================================================================
At 2001-07-04 05:01, Julio Fernandes wrote:
> Hi
> Has anyone noticed that the /DB#xxM (in which
>M is minutes ) swtich variant does not work?
>
> I tried to use it this way:
>
>xxcopy src dst /S /FC /DB#30M /YY
>
>objective: select only files that were created more
>than half an hour ago.
>
>result: select all files, even those with 1 minute
>creation time
>
>
>Thanxs in advance
>
>
>Julio



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