origination date of a file

here2learn · #1 (**permalink**) 08-19-2004

Is it possible to extract the origination date of a file? My thoughts are being able to extract this date even if the file was copied without preserving this information, if the file was ftp'ed without zipping/taring, etc.

Didn't know if this information is persistent in some file header or not? Wishful thinking??

Thanks.

Perderabo · #2 (**permalink**) 08-19-2004

Unix does not track file creation date. There is mtime, the last time that a write to the file occurred. But no creation time.

here2learn · #3 (**permalink**) 08-19-2004

That's kinda what I thought. Thanks for the confirmation Perderabo.

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