Is it possible to set the date/time of a directory in windows with Python? If so how?

[ToddLMorgan]

I'm trying to set any of the dates (create, modification, access) of a
directory under windows with python.

I'm trying to do this as I'm trying to write a unittest for a directory
cleaning script I'm writing (ie I need the test to set the create/mod
time for some of the directories so that I can be sure that the script
works properly - as it picks dirs based upon their age).

I've tried using the utime( path, times). That doesn't work as the doco
states
"Whether a directory can be given for path depends on whether the
operating system implements directories as files (for example, Windows
does not)."

So that doesn't work.

So I tried mark hammonds win32 extensions with something like this

import win32file, win32con, pywintypes
filehandle = win32file.CreateFile(file,
win32file.GENERIC_WRITE,win32file.FILE_SHARE_WRITE,
None,win32con.OPEN_ALWAYS, 0, None)
nowWin32=pywintypes.Time(theTime)
win32file.SetFileTime(filehandle, nowWin32, nowWin32, nowWin32)

which works fine for files but fails with "Access Denied" when I invoke
the CreateFile with a directory. This seems to occur no matter the
combination of READ or WRITE I choose for the parameters.

So does anyone have any useful suggestions (other than not using
windows)?

I've thought of a couple of reallly nasty solutions:
1. Temporarily alter the underlying system clock back to the required
time and create the directory then resetting it back again afterwards.
2. Create the required directory in some form of virtual filesystem -
eg Zip file, rar archive, tar etc. Then extract it to the real
filesystem and hope windows honors the timestamps (untested at this
point).

None of those is particularly appealing.

Thanks for listening.

 

[Roger Upole]

I'm trying to set any of the dates (create, modification, access) of a
directory under windows with python.

I'm trying to do this as I'm trying to write a unittest for a directory
cleaning script I'm writing (ie I need the test to set the create/mod
time for some of the directories so that I can be sure that the script
works properly - as it picks dirs based upon their age).

I've tried using the utime( path, times). That doesn't work as the doco
states
"Whether a directory can be given for path depends on whether the
operating system implements directories as files (for example, Windows
does not)."

So that doesn't work.

So I tried mark hammonds win32 extensions with something like this

import win32file, win32con, pywintypes
filehandle = win32file.CreateFile(file,
win32file.GENERIC_WRITE,win32file.FILE_SHARE_WRITE,
None,win32con.OPEN_ALWAYS, 0, None)
nowWin32=pywintypes.Time(theTime)
win32file.SetFileTime(filehandle, nowWin32, nowWin32, nowWin32)

which works fine for files but fails with "Access Denied" when I invoke
the CreateFile with a directory. This seems to occur no matter the
combination of READ or WRITE I choose for the parameters.

So does anyone have any useful suggestions (other than not using
windows)?

I've thought of a couple of reallly nasty solutions:
1. Temporarily alter the underlying system clock back to the required
time and create the directory then resetting it back again afterwards.
2. Create the required directory in some form of virtual filesystem -
eg Zip file, rar archive, tar etc. Then extract it to the real
filesystem and hope windows honors the timestamps (untested at this
point).

None of those is particularly appealing.

Thanks for listening.

To create a handle to a directory, you have to use
FILE_FLAG_BACK_SEMANTICS.

Roger

 

[ToddLMorgan]

Thanks very much for that roger

I changed my code to

filehandle = win32file.CreateFile(file, win32file.GENERIC_WRITE,
win32file.FILE_SHARE_WRITE, None, win32con.OPEN_ALWAYS,
win32con.FILE_FLAG_BACKUP_SEMANTICS, None)
nowWin32=pywintypes.Time(theTime)
win32file.SetFileTime(filehandle, nowWin32, nowWin32, nowWin32)

ie FILE_FLAG_BACKUP_SEMANTICS and everything works fine

Just for the sake of completeness ...

I'd just thought of another solution ... to have python determine the
modification date for the directory based upon the oldest contained
file (I'm guessing windows does the opposite - ie the newest file mod)
to give me the effect of having a directory with an older date.

The virtual file system idea didn't work either ... files had the
correct dates but the dirs didn't as doing the extraction with python
libs is subject to the same constraints ... and I didn't think that
altering the ZipInfo time entries would have any affect as they appear
to only represent files and not directories. I could have spawned a
command line to do the extraction but I lost interest at that point.

thanks again