file creation date

[James Wilkinson]

Michael Griffin wrote:
> How do I display/retrieve the date a file was created (using bash
> shell)?

You don't: not portably across filesystem types, anyway. Sorry.

There are three times kept in a Unix-type filesystem: the access time
(atime: when someone last "read" the file's contents), the modification
time (mtime, the last time someone wrote to the file's contents), and
the status change time (ctime, when someone last changed things like
permissions or filename: the "meta-data" stored by the filesystem
about the file).

You use ls -l for the modification time, ls -lu for the access time,
and ls -lc for the status time.

File creation date is not recorded. It may be the same as the mtime or
the ctime, or it may not.

Having said all that, some non-native filesystems supported by Linux
keep this data. I'm not aware of any way of getting it, though.

James.

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