> A clarification... if you access an inode (any inode,) the access time is
> updated. stat()ing the inode accesses the inode, hence the atime is updated
> for every file on the drive following 'ls -laR /'
If you are right then every time you check the atime it changes the atime,
thus the atime does you no good, we could just as well not bother updating
it and return the current time.
Files should have their atime changed when they are OPENED. Directories
are opened when you look at their contentents, they should have their
atime changed when you ls -R /. The file should not. And whatever is
updated, the cache shouldn't be flushed when you sync.