CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javamacosfileunixtime
Dean Moses
Dean Moses

Reputation: 2382

Best way to get file date created from Java on a UNIX system?

java.io.File doesn't provide a way to get a file's creation date. You can get file.lastModified, but not anything like dateCreated.

Java 7 adds the excellent java.nio.file package with access to date created, but it's not out yet.

My question: what's the best way to get a file's date created from Java on a UNIX/OSX system? I suppose it's executing a shell script, but my command line skills are pretty weak. So if shell scripting's the way to go, if you could provide a full example I'd be very grateful.

Thanks!

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1806

Answers (4)

Gabe
Gabe

Reputation: 86838

From the command line, the easiest way to get the creation date is with mdls. I think you'd want to do /usr/bin/mdls -name kMDItemFSCreationDate $filename (where $filename is the file you're asking about). You can specify multiple filenames, but that might make it harder to parse the output.

Upvotes: 2

jbruni
jbruni

Reputation: 1247

Unix doesn't have a "creation date". The only dates stored on files are modification date, which stores the time the file contents where changed; the access date, which stores the last time a file was read; and the "change date", which stores the last time the file's metadata was changed. (The metadata contains things like permission bits, ownership, etc.)

If you review the structure supported by the stat(2) API, you can see the three timespec's.

Upvotes: 2

bvk256
bvk256

Reputation: 1903

It actually depends on the file system, and most file systems don't provide such feature as storing a file "birth time". You need to check the filesystem.

Upvotes: 0

Dmitry Negoda
Dmitry Negoda

Reputation: 3199

You can't - it isn't stored anywhere

Upvotes: 0

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