{
  "slug": "metadata-update-dependency",
  "term": "Metadata update dependency",
  "aliases": [],
  "definition": "A metadata update dependency is an ordering requirement between persistent changes needed to preserve a filesystem invariant.",
  "note": "Ordering changes and recording recovery information are different consistency strategies. [compare2000]",
  "status": "shipping",
  "advantages": [],
  "limitations": [
    {
      "text": "An ordering constraint does not itself provide atomicity for an entire application transaction.",
      "citationIds": [
        "compare2000"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "related": [
    "soft-updates",
    "persistence-ordering",
    "filesystem-consistency-invariant"
  ],
  "supersedes": [],
  "supersededBy": [],
  "firstSeen": null,
  "lastSeen": null,
  "citations": [
    {
      "id": "compare2000",
      "title": "Seltzer, Ganger, McKusick, Smith, Soules and Stein. Journaling Versus Soft Updates: Asynchronous Meta-data Protection in File Systems. USENIX ATC 2000, pp. 71-84.",
      "url": "https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/usenix2000/general/full_papers/seltzer/seltzer_html/",
      "accessed": "2026-10-15"
    },
    {
      "id": "hesela-soft",
      "title": "Hesela: Soft updates and metadata ordering",
      "url": "https://hesela.com/analyses/soft-updates-metadata-ordering/",
      "accessed": "2026-10-15"
    }
  ],
  "updated": "2026-10-15"
}