Perl

Get a Remote File's Last-Modified Time

Demonstrates the Chilkat SFtp.GetFileLastModifiedStr method, which returns a remote file's last-modified 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: The last-modified time is the workhorse timestamp — it updates whenever a file's contents change and is what incremental-sync logic compares to decide whether a file needs re-transferring. It is the most reliably supported of the three across servers and filesystems, which is why timestamp-based sync keys off it.

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use strict;
use warnings;
use Chilkat2;

# Demonstrates the SFtp.GetFileLastModifiedStr method, which returns a remote file's last-modified
# 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.

my $sftp = Chilkat2::SFtp->new;

# Connect, authenticate, and initialize the SFTP subsystem.
my $port = 22;
my $success = $sftp->Connect('sftp.example.com', $port);
if (!$success) {
    print $sftp->LastErrorText, "\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.
my $password = 'mySshPassword';

$success = $sftp->AuthenticatePw('mySshLogin', $password);
if (!$success) {
    print $sftp->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

$success = $sftp->InitializeSftp();
if (!$success) {
    print $sftp->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

# 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.
my $bFollowLinks = 1;
my $bIsHandle = 0;

my $lastModified = $sftp->GetFileLastModifiedStr('subdir/report.pdf', $bFollowLinks, $bIsHandle);
if (!$sftp->LastMethodSuccess) {
    print $sftp->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

print 'Last modified: ', $lastModified, "\n";

$sftp->Disconnect();