VBScript

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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Dim fso, outFile
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
'Create a Unicode (utf-16) output text file.
Set outFile = fso.CreateTextFile("output.txt", True, True)

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.

set sftp = CreateObject("Chilkat.SFtp")

'  Connect, authenticate, and initialize the SFTP subsystem.
port = 22
success = sftp.Connect("sftp.example.com",port)
If (success = 0) Then
    outFile.WriteLine(sftp.LastErrorText)
    WScript.Quit
End If

'  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) Then
    outFile.WriteLine(sftp.LastErrorText)
    WScript.Quit
End If

success = sftp.InitializeSftp()
If (success = 0) Then
    outFile.WriteLine(sftp.LastErrorText)
    WScript.Quit
End If

'  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) Then
    outFile.WriteLine(sftp.LastErrorText)
    WScript.Quit
End If

outFile.WriteLine("Creation time set.")

sftp.Disconnect 

outFile.Close