nodejs / nodejs/node

fs: support utimes BigInt

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#50,859 3 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

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feature request fs never-stale
Dominant language
JavaScript
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

What is the problem this feature will solve?

Current utimes FS functions have a granularity of microseconds, while the stats BigInt functionality has a granularity of nanoseconds.

What is the feature you are proposing to solve the problem?

Adding support for BigInt to the utimes functions to enable nanosecond granularity for setting timestamps.

What alternatives have you considered?

The underlying reason for this issue is that floating point second values only have 24 significant digits, which does not extend to exact nanoseconds. Having stats support BigInt u64 times, while having utimes not creates the inability to exactly set and read the same level of precision. Relying on a BigInt input as a u64 nanoseconds value seems the most sensible way to resolve this to me.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by locating the filesystem utimes functions and the existing stats BigInt functionality. Compare how each represents timestamp precision and identify the relevant platform-specific paths. Done means BigInt inputs can set nanosecond timestamps and those values can be read back with matching precision.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript
Domain
operating-systems
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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