Actually, I take that back.   Looking at the timestamps of the files in my system backup from yesterday morning, I do see that the timestamps have changed.   Yesterday they were all (in the one directory I've restored to look at) 2020-08-31 16:59.   Today they are all 2020-09-02 14:00.   So it looks like it updates the timestamps on files even if the content doesn't change... interesting.

It may compare both the timestamp and the size and if either differs from what it expects it replaces the content of the file, and then either way it updates the timestamp.  Or perhaps it keeps a hidden cache of file checksums somewhere and the layout.json is used for other hinting, or by the dev mode.  I'm sure we'll find out at some point, all we can do now is reverse engineer.

(Not immediately relevant to the question at hand, but I didn't want to leave something I mis-stated uncorrected.  🙂 )

Edited September 3, 20205 yr by kaosfere

My question is, whether the dependency in the manifest file is required to ensure the correct file is substituted.

My hunch is that there isn't another instance of the BaseInstrument.js file.  If there was, (in another folder branch), there might be an issue if the dependency is not specified correctly.

I could be wrong.

 

Edited September 3, 20205 yr by smoothchat