VBScript

Set a Remote File's Last-Modified Time

Demonstrates the Chilkat SFtp.SetLastModifiedTimeStr method, which sets a remote file's last-modified 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.

Background: Of the three timestamps, the modified time is the one you most often want to set, because sync and build tools compare it to decide what is current. Stamping an uploaded file with its source's modified time keeps a mirror consistent and prevents an incremental sync from needlessly re-copying it. This is the most widely supported timestamp to set across servers.

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VBScript

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.SetLastModifiedTimeStr method, which sets a remote file's last-modified
'  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.SetLastModifiedTimeStr("subdir/report.pdf",bIsHandle,dateTimeStr)
If (success = 0) Then
    outFile.WriteLine(sftp.LastErrorText)
    WScript.Quit
End If

outFile.WriteLine("Last-modified time set.")

sftp.Disconnect 

outFile.Close