Perl

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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Perl

use chilkat();

$success = 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.

$sftp = chilkat::CkSFtp->new();

#  Connect, authenticate, and initialize the SFTP subsystem.
$port = 22;
$success = $sftp->Connect("sftp.example.com",$port);
if ($success == 0) {
    print $sftp->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
    exit;
}

#  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.
$password = "mySshPassword";

$success = $sftp->AuthenticatePw("mySshLogin",$password);
if ($success == 0) {
    print $sftp->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
    exit;
}

$success = $sftp->InitializeSftp();
if ($success == 0) {
    print $sftp->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
    exit;
}

#  The 1st argument is a path, so bIsHandle is 0.
$bIsHandle = 0;
$dateTimeStr = "Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:15:30 -0600";
$success = $sftp->SetCreateTimeStr("subdir/report.pdf",$bIsHandle,$dateTimeStr);
if ($success == 0) {
    print $sftp->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
    exit;
}

print "Creation time set." . "\r\n";

$sftp->Disconnect();