SIG ref no.

                  VAX     SIG     EUROPE

        SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT REQUEST SUBMISSION FORM


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Submitted by:	Chris Doran		Company/Institute: Sira Ltd

Address:	South Hill,		Phone:	+44 1 467 2636
		Chislehurst,		Telex:	896649
		Kent,			Fax:	+44 1 467 6515
		BR7 5EH,
		England.
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Please indicate any of the following which apply to this SIR:-

oX MicroVAX				oX Large VAXcluster
o Commercial Applications		oX CAD/Computer Modelling
oX Large, Diverse, User Base		oX Single Application System
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Which part of the system does this suggested improvement refer to ?
(e.g. Executive, Editors, COPY, RMS)
					TRUNCATE
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Please include as much information as possible about what facility you would
like to see, and include a justification for its inclusion in the standard
operating system.  Don't assume that we know anything about how it may have
already been done elsewhere.
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Abstract or short description (please limit to four lines):

Don't update the header on a file that doesn't need truncating.



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Optional full description :

Currently, TRUNCATE resets the modification date and time on a file even if it
didn't do anything to it. This causes confusion ("I don't remember modifying
that file today."), and may force an unnecessary incremental BACKUP to be made,
wasting tape and time. In any case, updating headers must slow down TRUNCATE
itself.

The problem is particularly apparent after a wildcard TRUNCATE.

If there is some good reason why the header date should be modified
"unnecessarily", perhaps we could have a /NOUNTRUNCATABLE qualifier to optionally
suppress modification.