Visual FoxPro

Get a Remote File's Creation Time

Demonstrates the Chilkat SFtp.GetFileCreateTimeStr method, which returns a remote file's creation date and time. The arguments are the remote path (or handle), whether symbolic links are followed, and whether the first argument is a handle.

Background: Creation time is the least universally available of the three timestamps: many Unix filesystems historically tracked only modified and accessed times, so a server may return nothing or a placeholder. Where it is supported it is genuinely useful — it does not change when a file is edited, unlike the modified time — but code should tolerate its absence rather than depend on it.

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LOCAL lnSuccess
LOCAL loSftp
LOCAL lnPort
LOCAL lcPassword
LOCAL lnBFollowLinks
LOCAL lnBIsHandle
LOCAL lcCreateTime

lnSuccess = 0

*  Demonstrates the SFtp.GetFileCreateTimeStr method, which returns a remote file's creation date
*  and time.  The 1st argument is the remote path (or handle), the 2nd selects whether symbolic
*  links are followed, and the 3rd indicates whether the 1st argument is a handle.

loSftp = CreateObject('Chilkat.SFtp')

*  Connect, authenticate, and initialize the SFTP subsystem.
lnPort = 22
lnSuccess = loSftp.Connect("sftp.example.com",lnPort)
IF (lnSuccess = 0) THEN
    ? loSftp.LastErrorText
    RELEASE loSftp
    CANCEL
ENDIF

*  Normally you would not hard-code the password in source.  You should instead obtain it
*  from an interactive prompt, environment variable, or a secrets vault.
lcPassword = "mySshPassword"

lnSuccess = loSftp.AuthenticatePw("mySshLogin",lcPassword)
IF (lnSuccess = 0) THEN
    ? loSftp.LastErrorText
    RELEASE loSftp
    CANCEL
ENDIF

lnSuccess = loSftp.InitializeSftp()
IF (lnSuccess = 0) THEN
    ? loSftp.LastErrorText
    RELEASE loSftp
    CANCEL
ENDIF

*  The 2nd argument (bFollowLinks) selects whether a symbolic link is followed to its target.
*  The 3rd argument (bIsHandle) is 0 here because the 1st argument is a path, not an
*  open handle.
lnBFollowLinks = 1
lnBIsHandle = 0

lcCreateTime = loSftp.GetFileCreateTimeStr("subdir/report.pdf",lnBFollowLinks,lnBIsHandle)
IF (loSftp.LastMethodSuccess = 0) THEN
    ? loSftp.LastErrorText
    RELEASE loSftp
    CANCEL
ENDIF

? "Created: " + lcCreateTime

*  Note: Not all servers and filesystems record a creation time.

loSftp.Disconnect()

RELEASE loSftp