Vim detects a file on a VMS Samba share has changed when it has not

[John E. Malmberg]

BG - Ben Armstrong wrote:
> I am using Vim on Linux to edit files on a Samba share on VMS.  I am
> finding that it detects a file has changed when it has not.  That is,
> the following dialog box appears a couple of minutes after I start
> editing:
> 
> W12: Warning: File "/dyma/s/dymax/020005/bg.tas" has changed and the
> buffer was changed in Vim as well
> See ":help W11" for more info.
> 
> Here is a dir/full of that file on VMS.  Perhaps a significant detail is
> that the file is owned by [DV.BH] whereas I am [DV,BG].  Also, I have
> seen the same dialog box appear when the text file is a "Stream" file,
> so I don't think the fact that it is a "Variable" file has any bearing
> on the problem.
<snip>
> 
> Any ideas as to what could be wrong?  Further tests I could do to narrow
> down the possibilities?

Unless a special case has been put in the latest OpenVMS port, what you 
are seeing could be an artifact of a different behavior between UNIX and 
OpenVMS.

In the 2.0.x versions, SAMBA always opened a file for read/write access, 
even if read access was requested.  This was related to how SAMBA 
handled lock requests.  Apparently there was an issue if the client 
changed from read only to write access.

On UNIX, the file modification date is only changed if the actual file 
was changed.

On OpenVMS, the file modification date is updated because the file was 
opened for write.

There may be some DECC$ feature logicals that can affect this on ODS-5 
volumes.

I put a hack in on the SAMBA 2.0.6 to deal with this issue.

-John
wb8tyw at qsl.network
Personal Opinion Only