Attributing an old time stamp for a new file.

[Peter Bailey]

Hello,
I need to read some data from some older files and put that info. into
simple ASCII text files. But, I want those new text files to have the
same time stamp as the original files that the data came from. Is there
any way to do that?

Thanks,
Peter

 

[ara.t.howard]

Hello,
I need to read some data from some older files and put that info. into
simple ASCII text files. But, I want those new text files to have the
same time stamp as the original files that the data came from. Is there
any way to do that?

Thanks,
Peter

harp: ~> ri FileUtils.touch
-------------------------------------------------------- FileUtils#touch
touch(list, options = {})
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Options: noop verbose

Updates modification time (mtime) and access time (atime) of
file(s) in +list+. Files are created if they don't exist.

FileUtils.touch 'timestamp'
FileUtils.touch Dir.glob('*.c'); system 'make'


-a

 

[Rob Biedenharn]

harp: ~> ri FileUtils.touch
--------------------------------------------------------
FileUtils#touch
touch(list, options = {})
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Options: noop verbose

Updates modification time (mtime) and access time (atime) of
file(s) in +list+. Files are created if they don't exist.

FileUtils.touch 'timestamp'
FileUtils.touch Dir.glob('*.c'); system 'make'


-a

Unless there's a way to specify to FileUtils.touch the value of the
timestamp, you can use the touch command (if you're on a sufficiently
unix-like platform):

touch -r oldfile newfile

...which sets the times on 'newfile' to be the same as the -r
(eference) file 'oldfile'

-Rob

Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Peter Bailey]

harp: ~> ri FileUtils.touch
-------------------------------------------------------- FileUtils#touch
touch(list, options = {})
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Options: noop verbose

Updates modification time (mtime) and access time (atime) of
file(s) in +list+. Files are created if they don't exist.

FileUtils.touch 'timestamp'
FileUtils.touch Dir.glob('*.c'); system 'make'


-a

Thanks. ri verbage is rarely clear to me. These sample lines definitely
seem to be referring to Unix stuff. "make" means nothing in Windows.
where I am. Thanks, anyway.

 

[Peter Bailey]

Unless there's a way to specify to FileUtils.touch the value of the

timestamp, you can use the touch command (if you're on a sufficiently
unix-like platform):

touch -r oldfile newfile

...which sets the times on 'newfile' to be the same as the -r
(eference) file 'oldfile'

-Rob

Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com
(e-mail address removed)

Nope, I'm on Windows. Having a "touch" like that would certainly be
nice, and simple. I'm going to keep playing with the FileUtils.touch to
see what I can do. Thanks.

 

[Brian Candler]

Thanks. ri verbage is rarely clear to me. These sample lines definitely
seem to be referring to Unix stuff.

Not really. The first creates an empty file called 'timestamp'; the second
updates the timestamps of all files *.c in the current directory, and then
runs 'make' (which could be a DOS command)

"make" means nothing in Windows.
where I am. Thanks, anyway.

Use the source

Find fileutils.rb on your system (on mine it's
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/fileutils.rb but it'll be different under Windows)

Scan down to "def touch". You'll see it's a simple function which just calls

File.utime(t, t, path)

which I think is what you're really looking for.

------------------------------------------------------------ File::utime
File.utime(atime, mtime, file_name,...) => integer

 

[Peter Bailey]

Not really. The first creates an empty file called 'timestamp'; the
second
updates the timestamps of all files *.c in the current directory, and
then
runs 'make' (which could be a DOS command)


Use the source

Find fileutils.rb on your system (on mine it's
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/fileutils.rb but it'll be different under Windows)

Scan down to "def touch". You'll see it's a simple function which just
calls

File.utime(t, t, path)

which I think is what you're really looking for.

------------------------------------------------------------ File::utime
File.utime(atime, mtime, file_name,...) => integer

Thanks, Brian! Well, no, "make" is meaningless in DOS or Windows,
believe me. But, I did look into the fileutils.rb file and I do indeed
see what you point out. I'd never have thought to look into one of these
files. Amazing to me. So, I've tried this and it still doesn't work:

FileUtils.touch("file1", "file2")

What does "t" stand for above?

 

[Brian Candler]

Thanks, Brian! Well, no, "make" is meaningless in DOS or Windows,
believe me. But, I did look into the fileutils.rb file and I do indeed
see what you point out. I'd never have thought to look into one of these
files. Amazing to me. So, I've tried this and it still doesn't work:

FileUtils.touch("file1", "file2")

What does "t" stand for above?

Time. (atime and mtime are last accessed time and last modified time,
respectively).

 

[Rob Biedenharn]

Thanks, Brian! Well, no, "make" is meaningless in DOS or Windows,
believe me. But, I did look into the fileutils.rb file and I do indeed
see what you point out. I'd never have thought to look into one of
these
files. Amazing to me. So, I've tried this and it still doesn't work:

FileUtils.touch("file1", "file2")

What does "t" stand for above?

it is set to Time.now, but you want to do something like:

newfile = "#{oldfile}.txt"
File.open(oldfile) do |o|
File.open(newfile, 'w') do |n|
# while line = o.gets
# n << fixup(line)
# end
end
end
t = File.mtime(oldfile)
File.utime(t,t, newfile)

Of course the inner loop is whatever you need it to be. The key here
is to just do the part of FileUtils.touch that you need which is the
call to File.utime on the new file. Since you just had to create it
(and fill it with something), you don't have to create it (the rescue
clause in touch).

(I hadn't run across the File.utime before, but I should've expected
that from Perl's influence.)

-Rob

Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com
(e-mail address removed)

 

[William (Bill) Froelich]

-----Original Message-----

=20
Thanks, Brian! Well, no, "make" is meaningless in DOS or=20
Windows, believe me. But, I did look into the fileutils.rb=20
file and I do indeed see what you point out. I'd never have=20
thought to look into one of these files. Amazing to me. So,=20
I've tried this and it still doesn't work:
=20
FileUtils.touch("file1", "file2")
=20
What does "t" stand for above?

The "t" is the accesstime and modified time you want to set the file to.
The FileUtils.touch sets the time on the specified file(s) to the
current time (and creates the file if it doesn't exist). This works for
me as expected on Windows.

File.utime will set the time to any artibary time value. Assuming
testfile.txt already exists the following works for me on Windows.

a =3D Time.now - (24*60*60*3) # To get the time three days ago
File.utime(a,a,"testfile.txt") # To set the accessed and modified time
for the file to three days ago

Hope this helps

--Bill

 

[Peter Bailey]

it is set to Time.now, but you want to do something like:

newfile = "#{oldfile}.txt"
File.open(oldfile) do |o|
File.open(newfile, 'w') do |n|
# while line = o.gets
# n << fixup(line)
# end
end
end
t = File.mtime(oldfile)
File.utime(t,t, newfile)

Of course the inner loop is whatever you need it to be. The key here
is to just do the part of FileUtils.touch that you need which is the
call to File.utime on the new file. Since you just had to create it
(and fill it with something), you don't have to create it (the rescue
clause in touch).

(I hadn't run across the File.utime before, but I should've expected
that from Perl's influence.)

-Rob

Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com
(e-mail address removed)

Thank you all, gentlemen.
These lines are the ones that made it shine for me, Rob:

t = File.mtime(oldfile)
File,utime(t,t,newfile)

because that's exactly what I need to do. I need to grab the time stamp
for my postscript files and then assign those times to my simple text
files derived from those .ps files.

Thanks again!

-Peter

 

[Robert Klemme]

Thanks, Brian! Well, no, "make" is meaningless in DOS or Windows,
believe me.

This general statement is wrong. *You* might not have make on your
Windows box - I and a lot others do.

Kind regards

robert