Objective-C

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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Objective-C

#import <CkoSFtp.h>
#import <NSString.h>

BOOL success = NO;

//  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.

CkoSFtp *sftp = [[CkoSFtp alloc] init];

//  Connect, authenticate, and initialize the SFTP subsystem.
int port = 22;
success = [sftp Connect: @"sftp.example.com" port: [NSNumber numberWithInt: port]];
if (success == NO) {
    NSLog(@"%@",sftp.LastErrorText);
    return;
}

//  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.
NSString *password = @"mySshPassword";

success = [sftp AuthenticatePw: @"mySshLogin" password: password];
if (success == NO) {
    NSLog(@"%@",sftp.LastErrorText);
    return;
}

success = [sftp InitializeSftp];
if (success == NO) {
    NSLog(@"%@",sftp.LastErrorText);
    return;
}

//  The 1st argument is a path, so bIsHandle is false.
BOOL bIsHandle = NO;
NSString *dateTimeStr = @"Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:15:30 -0600";
success = [sftp SetCreateTimeStr: @"subdir/report.pdf" bIsHandle: bIsHandle createTimeStr: dateTimeStr];
if (success == NO) {
    NSLog(@"%@",sftp.LastErrorText);
    return;
}

NSLog(@"%@",@"Creation time set.");

[sftp Disconnect];