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treewide: migrate from legacy utime.h to utimensat - #2209

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treewide: migrate from legacy utime.h to utimensat#2209
vonosmas wants to merge 3 commits into
gitgitgadget:masterfrom
vonosmas:drop-utime-h

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@vonosmas

@vonosmas vonosmas commented Aug 20, 2026

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utime() function for setting access/modification time for files
(and a corresponding <utime.h> header) have been officially removed
from POSIX starting from POSIX.1-2024. While existing system library
implementations still provide this function for compatibility reasons,
its implementation may be removed in the future, or otherwise degrade
over time. Some newer libc implementations (e.g. LLVM-libc, currently
under development) don't provide utime() function at all.

This PR switches the git codebase to recommended alternative:
utimensat() POSIX function (which supports nanosecond-level precision)
from <fcntl.h>, and, as a possible fallback for older systems
compatibility, utimes() function from <sys/stat.h>.
It also provides the corresponding MinGW wrapper.

The alternative is to unconditionally use utimes() where possible, but
given that utimensat is available in glibc starting from 2007, and on
BSD systems since 2012 or so, it makes sense to use the newer variant
by default.

No behavior changes is intended or expected (except for Git explicitly
passing nanosecond-precision timestamps to kernel, where
previously only second-level precision was used).

This change is generated by Gemini Flash from Antigravity, but all the
code has been manually verified by me, and, where applicable,
adjusted to match the existing behavior as closely as possible.

Signed-off-by: Alexey Samsonov vonosmas@gmail.com

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In POSIX.1-2008, utime(3p) was marked as obsolescent in favor of
utimensat(2) and futimens(2). In the recent POSIX.1-2024 (Issue 8)
specification, <utime.h> and utime(3p) were officially removed.

utimensat(2) operates on `struct timespec` rather than the second-only
`struct utimbuf`, allowing sub-second timestamp updates while also
providing support for UTIME_NOW and UTIME_OMIT flags to selectively
update or preserve individual access and modification timestamps.

Introduce a compatibility layer for utimensat(2):
- Provide fallback definitions for AT_FDCWD, UTIME_NOW, and UTIME_OMIT
  in case the system headers lack them.
- Introduce `ST_ATIME_NSEC(st)` to complement `ST_MTIME_NSEC(st)` and
  `ST_CTIME_NSEC(st)`.
- Implement `git_utimensat()` in `compat/utimensat.c` as a fallback using
  utimes(2) on platforms that define NO_UTIMENSAT.
- Implement `mingw_utimensat()` in `compat/mingw.c` converting `struct
  timespec` to Windows FILETIME with 100ns precision.
- Wire up NO_UTIMENSAT support in Makefile, meson.build,
  contrib/buildsystems/CMakeLists.txt, and configure.ac.

Subsequent commits will migrate callers across the codebase to
utimensat(2) and drop the legacy <utime.h> header.

Signed-off-by: Alexey Samsonov <vonosmas@gmail.com>
Now that a compatibility wrapper for utimensat(2) has been introduced,
migrate all call sites across the codebase to use utimensat(2) instead of
the legacy utime(3p) interface:

- In `commit-graph.c`, use utimensat(2) with UTIME_OMIT and the computed
  timestamp `now` to bump the commit-graph modification time consistently
  across all files without needing an extra stat(2) call to preserve atime.
- In `copy.c`, use utimensat(2) to copy full sub-second access and
  modification timestamps from the source file.
- In `odb/source-packed.c`, `odb/source-loose.c`, and `object-file.c`,
  use utimensat(2) with `struct timespec` to freshen file timestamps.
- In `builtin/pack-objects.c`, update the pack timestamp with
  utimensat(2).
- In `rerere.c`, touch the postimage file with utimensat(2) passing NULL
  to set both atime and mtime to current time.
- In `t/helper/test-chmtime.c`, update file modification times using
  utimensat(2).

Signed-off-by: Alexey Samsonov <vonosmas@gmail.com>
With all callers across the codebase now converted to utimensat(2), we no
longer need to include the legacy <utime.h> header in `compat/posix.h`.

Remove `#include <utime.h>` from `compat/posix.h` and test fixtures,
remove `mingw_utime()` from `compat/mingw.c`, and delete the legacy
header shims in `compat/vcbuild/include/`.

Signed-off-by: Alexey Samsonov <vonosmas@gmail.com>
@vonosmas vonosmas changed the title Replace obsoleted utime with utimensat treewide: migrate from legacy utime.h to utimensat Aug 20, 2026
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