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Get a Remote File's Creation Time

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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const std = @import("std");
const chilkat = @import("chilkat");

pub fn main(init: std.process.Init) !void {
    const alloc = init.arena.allocator();

    // 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.

    const sftp = try chilkat.SFtp.init();
    defer sftp.deinit();

    // Connect, authenticate, and initialize the SFTP subsystem.
    const port = 22;
    sftp.connect("sftp.example.com", port) catch {
        std.debug.print("{s}\n", .{try sftp.getLastErrorText(alloc)});
        return;
    };

    // 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.
    const password = "mySshPassword";

    sftp.authenticatePw("mySshLogin", password) catch {
        std.debug.print("{s}\n", .{try sftp.getLastErrorText(alloc)});
        return;
    };

    sftp.initializeSftp() catch {
        std.debug.print("{s}\n", .{try sftp.getLastErrorText(alloc)});
        return;
    };

    // The 2nd argument (bFollowLinks) selects whether a symbolic link is followed to its target.
    // The 3rd argument (bIsHandle) is false here because the 1st argument is a path, not an
    // open handle.
    const b_follow_links = true;
    const b_is_handle = false;

    const create_time = sftp.getFileCreateTimeStr(alloc, "subdir/report.pdf", b_follow_links, b_is_handle) catch {
        std.debug.print("{s}\n", .{try sftp.getLastErrorText(alloc)});
        return;
    };

    std.debug.print("Created: {s}\n", .{create_time});

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

    sftp.disconnect();
}