hobie of RMN wrote: > Lately a script that has worked well and as intended for years and years > has begun doing something odd. When archiving a bunch of flat files, > instead of keeping the creation timestamps on those files, it stamps them > with the date and time of their being moved. > > Why that's happening is a separate issue and one that I do need to find > the answer to, but my question today is this: Is it possible to find the > original creation date-and-time on these files, or is it simply "gone with > the wind" at this point?
No. There are three timestamps, and none of them are original creation times. atime is last access time, and most modern systems have either stopped recording this, or set it only when mtime is written. mtime is last modification time, or if you prefer, the last time it was written to. ctime is not creation time; it is the last time the inode was changed. ctime is updated when the permissions or ownership of the file changes, or the number of links changes, or the number of blocks changes... -dsr-
