On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 12:36 PM, Brion Vibber<brion(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Yes, in the sense that they were added to the database
afterwards.
No, in the sense that rev_timestamp may not always show a later date for
a later rev_id:
* Page histories imported from pre-conversion UseModWiki archives
* Anything imported via Special:Import
* Anything undeleted before ar_rev_id column was added
* Anything saved on a server that had a mis-configured clock
Plus there's a race condition in generating the timestamps. They're
generated slightly before the row is actually inserted, so if two
revisions were saved at almost exactly the same time, it's possible
for one to have a timestamp one second later but a lower id.
This is usually a safe-ish assumption, though, as long as occasional
misordering is acceptable. Don't we generate next/previous revision
links in some places based on rev_id?