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Tcl

Get a Remote File's Creation Time

See more SFTP Examples

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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Tcl

load ./chilkat.dll

set success 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.

set sftp [new_CkSFtp]

#  Connect, authenticate, and initialize the SFTP subsystem.
set port 22
set success [CkSFtp_Connect $sftp "sftp.example.com" $port]
if {$success == 0} then {
    puts [CkSFtp_lastErrorText $sftp]
    delete_CkSFtp $sftp
    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.
set password "mySshPassword"

set success [CkSFtp_AuthenticatePw $sftp "mySshLogin" $password]
if {$success == 0} then {
    puts [CkSFtp_lastErrorText $sftp]
    delete_CkSFtp $sftp
    exit
}

set success [CkSFtp_InitializeSftp $sftp]
if {$success == 0} then {
    puts [CkSFtp_lastErrorText $sftp]
    delete_CkSFtp $sftp
    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.
set bFollowLinks 1
set bIsHandle 0

set createTime [CkSFtp_getFileCreateTimeStr $sftp "subdir/report.pdf" $bFollowLinks $bIsHandle]
if {[CkSFtp_get_LastMethodSuccess $sftp] == 0} then {
    puts [CkSFtp_lastErrorText $sftp]
    delete_CkSFtp $sftp
    exit
}

puts "Created: $createTime"

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

CkSFtp_Disconnect $sftp

delete_CkSFtp $sftp