zoo creates archives with wrong date and time on the filesystem

Looking a bit closer at that issue, it seems that only the last modification time is taken into account, the access time doesn't seem to matter. The following terminal log should be self-explanatory:

zapman@ubuntu:~/work/bugs/zoo$ touch -d "2004-02-29 16:21:42" testfile
zapman@ubuntu:~/work/bugs/zoo$ zoo -add test1.zoo testfile
Zoo: testfile -- ( 0%) added
zapman@ubuntu:~/work/bugs/zoo$ dir -lha
total 12K
drwxr-xr-x 2 zapman zapman 4.0K 2012-12-14 14:04 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 zapman zapman 4.0K 2012-12-14 13:56 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 zapman zapman 169 2004-02-29 16:21 test1.zoo
-rw-r--r-- 1 zapman zapman 0 2004-02-29 16:21 testfile
zapman@ubuntu:~/work/bugs/zoo$ touch -d "2005-02-22 16:28:42" testfile
zapman@ubuntu:~/work/bugs/zoo$ zoo -add test2.zoo testfile
Zoo: testfile -- ( 0%) added
zapman@ubuntu:~/work/bugs/zoo$ arj a -hk test2.arj testfile
ARJ32 v 3.10, Copyright (c) 1998-2004, ARJ Software Russia. [18 Dec 2009]

Creating archive : test2.arj
Adding testfile 0.0%
Working...
  1x .
ARJ-PROTECT data size 4096 bytes (3276.8%)
     1 file(s)
AUTO ARJ-PROTECT enabled (1x)
zapman@ubuntu:~/work/bugs/zoo$ dir -lha
total 24K
drwxr-xr-x 2 zapman zapman 4.0K 2012-12-14 14:05 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 zapman zapman 4.0K 2012-12-14 13:56 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 zapman zapman 169 2004-02-29 16:21 test1.zoo
-rw-r--r-- 1 zapman zapman 4.2K 2012-12-14 14:05 test2.arj
-rw-r--r-- 1 zapman zapman 169 2005-02-22 16:28 test2.zoo
-rw-r--r-- 1 zapman zapman 0 2005-02-22 16:28 testfile
zapman@ubuntu:~/work/bugs/zoo$ date
Fri Dec 14 14:06:21 CET 2012
zapman@ubuntu:~/work/bugs/zoo$ touch -d "2017-02-22 16:28:42" testfile
zapman@ubuntu:~/work/bugs/zoo$ zoo -add test3.zoo testfile
Zoo: testfile -- ( 0%) added
zapman@ubuntu:~/work/bugs/zoo$ dir -lha
total 28K
drwxr-xr-x 2 zapman zapman 4.0K 2012-12-14 14:13 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 zapman zapman 4.0K 2012-12-14 13:56 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 zapman zapman 169 2004-02-29 16:21 test1.zoo
-rw-r--r-- 1 zapman zapman 4.2K 2012-12-14 14:05 test2.arj
-rw-r--r-- 1 zapman zapman 169 2005-02-22 16:28 test2.zoo
-rw-r--r-- 1 zapman zapman 169 2017-02-22 16:28 test3.zoo
-rw-r--r-- 1 zapman zapman 0 2017-02-22 16:28 testfile

It took me a white to undertand where the date problem was, but I think you're referring to this:

# Commands run in *one* big line so that date discrepancies are minimized

   cd <some safe dir>

  rm -f *.zoo *.bak *.txt; \
  touch -d "2000-02-01 01:01:00" 1-oldest.txt; \
  touch -d "2000-03-01 01:01:00" 2-newest.txt; \
  date +"# now: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"; \
  zoo -add archive.zoo *.txt > /dev/null ; \
  ls -la | grep -Ev 'total| [.]' ; \
  zoo -list *.zoo

# now: 2013-05-28 10:25:22
-rw-r--r-- 1 user src 0 2000-02-01 01:01 1-oldest.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 user src 0 2000-03-01 01:01 2-newest.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 user src 240 2000-02-29 00:01 archive.zoo

Archive archive.zoo:
Length CF Size Now Date Time
-------- --- -------- --------- --------
       0 0% 0 1 Feb 00 01:01:00+64 0000 1-oldest.txt
       0 0% 0 1 Mar 00 01:01:00+64 0000 2-newest.txt
-------- --- -------- --------- --------
       0 0% 0 2 files

NOTES

The date of the *.zoo archive is not the current date it was created, but taken somehow from the date of the file that was added to it.

This looks characteristics to zoo; This also happens with options -update and -freshen.

A fix is being implemented for the 2.10-28 zoo release. Wath changelog at http://packages.qa.debian.org/z/zoo.html