Detecting directory changes.

[COLLOT Jean-Yves]

>Without knowing what is using the internal routine, I do 
>not know if it will remain, will be removed, or if changes to RMS will 
>leave it totally or partially non-functional.

Actually, this internal routine uses a feature of the XQP, not of RMS, but
it's a detail.

>It may work for now, but as it is an internal routine, it is 
>unsupported, and may break with out notice, even from the installation 
>of an ECO kit.  

Well, this is hardly what happened in the past, however. As Dave Jones
pointed out, this internal routine is dated 1993 in the sources, and uses an
XQP feature (using the VMS lock manager in a certain way) that seems to be
present since the very beginning of the XQP itself (middle of the 80s, if I
remember correctly), precisely for managing the validation of the directory
XQP cache in a cluster environment. In my opinion, the probability of a
sudden break out for this particular feature sounds low.

Note that my old method of looking at the lock value block of the XQP volume
lock used another XQP feature that is hardly more documented or supported...


Caching directory and file (stat) information enhances Samba/VMS
performances very much, that's a fact. May be that the price to pay is to
take the risk of using some undocumented/unsupported VMS feature.