From: Jeremy Tregunna <jtregunna@...>
Date: 2006-08-16T06:53:39+09:00
Subject: Re: How do I get the creation date of a file?


On 06-08-15, at 17:25, gwtmp01@mac.com wrote:

>
> On Aug 15, 2006, at 5:05 PM, marek4130@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> Ruby's file class has three methods for querying time related data:
>> atime, ctime and mtime. None of these will give me the creation  
>> date of
>> a file. Anyone got a clue?
>
> There is no such thing as a creation time of a file.  That is to  
> say such information
> isn't stored in the filesystem.

That is incorrect. It is however, platform specific. On BSD systems,  
the creation date of a file is stored, and can be retrieved using for  
example, stat(1). Example:

% stat /bin/ls                      [17:32:52]
device  234881026
inode   1928485
mode    33133
nlink   1
uid     0
gid     0
rdev    0
size    32460
atime   1155674758
mtime   1111445359
ctime   1136127994
blksize 4096
blocks  64
link

Note the ctime. You can fetch this programmatically to.

That said, the creation time is the initial modification time in so  
much as that it doesn't record when the file was created, but rather,  
when it was created on the filesystem. So your document could be 30  
years old, the ctime will report the time you put it on the filesystem.

> Gary Wright

--
Jeremy Tregunna
jtregunna@blurgle.ca


"One serious obstacle to the adoption of good programming languages  
is the notion that everything has to be sacrificed for speed. In  
computer languages as in life, speed kills." -- Mike Vanier