File creation times?

[Robert Fisher_1]

Hello experts,

I have what i hope is a very simple question. How can I determine when a file was created?

TIA, Bob

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

You have a very simple question and I have a very simple answer: "You can't." (Or at least if you can, it's only by accident.) The file creation time is not carried in the inode but MAY be the same as the ctime (time mode, ownergroup, group was changed.).

Your only real, reliable option is to carry that data in the filename itself or as part of the file.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Bob:

There is no creation timestamp maintained. You can interrogate the 'modification' timestamp (which is equivalent to the creation one when the file is first created) with 'ls -l', but this timestamp changes if a file is opened and written to afterwards. The '-c' option of 'ls' tracks permission and ownership changes and the '-u' option of 'ls' offers the last-access timestamp.

Remember, any or all, of these timestamps can be manipulated with the 'touch' command. See the man pages for more information.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Robert Fisher_1]

Thanks Clay and JRF for the fast answers. Clay, you mentioned that I might include the creation time in the filename. How can I do that?

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi Bob:

Well you could use various options of the date commands output to record the timestamp as a filename suffix. e.g. myfile.YYYYMMDDHHMMSS or Plan B. simply use the epoch seconds to do this.

SECONDS=$(perl -e 'print time')

The inverse would be
perl -e "print scalar localtime(${SECONDS})".

[Steven E. Protter]

via shell scripting...

forgive any errors, don't have a UX machine I can even look at today.

TIMESTAMP=`date`

FILENAME="Steves data file.%m%s%d.data"

...
create file using name


...
end of script.

There are dozens of options on exactly how you want to stamp the file. If my flu burned out neurons recall this information is in the documentaiton of the date command.

Someone correct or add on. I'm trying to get across a concept that needs to be in the thread, but I don't have a reference script here.

darn.

half a try.

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