Possible rift in ImHex's space-time continuum 😁

[gtackett]

How can a file be modified before it's created?

Or perhaps created and modified mean something else here?

[paxcut]

Files are loaded from disk or created from nothing. While being edited they exist only in memory where thy can be modified without them being saved to disk. That applies to both input files and their patterns.

[gtackett]

This still goes contrary to the usual connotations of creation and modification dates. I think at least an explanatory note in the [eventual] online help would be in order.

[WerWolv]

Is this a file created by ImHex? Because those dates are returned exclusively by the POSIX stat function and to them, these are just 3 separate integers saved with the file in your file system. Any program may set them to anything they want - even entirely nonsensical things like having the creation time way in the future and the modification date way in the past.

So I'm wondering, is it ImHex that causes these slightly wrong values to be set or is it some other tool that created / modified that file and didn't update those fields correctly?