Re: setting file creation time of a date

[Johnny Billquist <bqt%update.uu.se@localhost>]

On 2020-04-30 12:21, Riccardo Mottola wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a more programmer question.
> Standard POSIX (and thus e.g. linux) handle only the modification date 
> of the file.
>
> NetBSD, FreeBSD, Darwin/Mac (and even windows) keep also track of the 
> creation date.
>
> stat birthtime, birthtimespec, birthtim are the BSD names inside the 
> structure
>
> I can with lstat get it and on copy of a file, set it using by using 
> utime(3) or utimensat(3)
>
>
> But can I set the creation time? I'd like to be able to preserve it when 
> dealing with files.

Looking at the utimes system call, you can potentially modify the 
birthtime through that. But only indirectly, and in one direction.

If you set modification time to something older than birthtime, 
birthtime will be changed to modification time.

  Johnny

--
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
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