Visual FoxPro

Set a Remote File's Creation Time

Demonstrates the Chilkat SFtp.SetCreateTimeStr method, which sets a remote file's creation date and time. The arguments are the remote path (or handle), whether the first argument is a handle, and an RFC 822 formatted date/time string such as Fri, 21 Nov 1997 09:55:06 -0600.

Background: Setting timestamps matters when preserving a file's original chronology — migrating an archive, restoring a backup, or mirroring a directory so the copies look identical to the source. Whether creation time can actually be set depends on the server and filesystem; many do not support a settable creation time even when they can set the modified and accessed times. The RFC 822 format includes a timezone offset, so the moment is unambiguous.

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LOCAL lnSuccess
LOCAL loSftp
LOCAL lnPort
LOCAL lcPassword
LOCAL lnBIsHandle
LOCAL lcDateTimeStr

lnSuccess = 0

*  Demonstrates the SFtp.SetCreateTimeStr method, which sets a remote file's creation date and
*  time.  The 1st argument is the remote path (or handle), the 2nd (bIsHandle) indicates which,
*  and the 3rd is an RFC 822 formatted date/time string.

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 1st argument is a path, so bIsHandle is 0.
lnBIsHandle = 0
lcDateTimeStr = "Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:15:30 -0600"
lnSuccess = loSftp.SetCreateTimeStr("subdir/report.pdf",lnBIsHandle,lcDateTimeStr)
IF (lnSuccess = 0) THEN
    ? loSftp.LastErrorText
    RELEASE loSftp
    CANCEL
ENDIF

? "Creation time set."

loSftp.Disconnect()

RELEASE loSftp