如何使用Perl在Unix中获得文件创建时间

Question

How to get file creation time in unix with perl?

I have this command which displays file's last modification time:

perl -MPOSIX -le 'print strftime "%d %b %Y %H:%M ".$_, localtime((lstat)[9]) for @ARGV' file.txt

Answer 1

There is not normally file creation time in UNIX. A new xstat() interface promises support for it, but perl doesn't use it. It is possible to write an XS-based interface to gain access to it.

In Perl on UNIX, ctime stands for Inode Change Time, which has nothing to do with file creation.

According to perlport , ctime will be creation time only on Windows, but you might want to use the Win32API::File::Time::GetFileTime() since it is more explicit (and will be obvious to porters) that your program depends on creation time instead of whatever ctime contains.

Answer 2

You almost have it.

You just need to pass the return value from localtime instead of the filename to strftime :

perl -MPOSIX -e 'printf "%s %s\n", $_, strftime("%d %b %Y %H:%M", localtime((lstat)[9])) for @ARGV' file.txt

Outputs:

file.txt 10 Oct 2014 15:38

And even though it takes more code, I'd lean toward using Time::Piece and File::stat to make the code more modern and readable:

perl -MTime::Piece -MFile::stat -e '
    printf "%s %s\n",  $_, localtime( stat($_)->mtime )->strftime("%d %b %Y %H:%M") for @ARGV
  ' file.txt