How would I see how many times a file has been written to?

anon02 · 09-22-2011, 02:46 PM

I have been making a game on a single computer, on the same location using Gedit and Vim. I heard about the 'Game in a day' contests and this prompted a thought; How long had development for my game gone on for, in hours, or revisions. I was wondering if there was a way to see how many times a file had been written to (On average I spent 10 minutes with it open, as there are long coding periods (about an hour) and shorter bug fixes) so I could see how long I had been working on it.

Even better than this would be to see how long it had been. I do not know any commands that could do this, are there any at all?

Nylex · 09-22-2011, 02:51 PM

Why don't you use version control for your code? That way, you can track the changes. I'm not sure which version control systems allow you to see changes on a per-file basis, but I imagine it can be done (I've only got a basic knowledge of SVN).

anon02 · 09-22-2011, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nylex

Why don't you use version control for your code? That way, you can track the changes. I'm not sure which version control systems allow you to see changes on a per-file basis, but I imagine it can be done (I've only got a basic knowledge of SVN).

I will probably look into that now.

I know I compiled it for Windows on 23rd August and I had been working on it for at least 10 days, so probably averaging 20 minutes a day since then.

redw0lfx · 09-22-2011, 04:06 PM

There isn't any command to track how many times a file was written to, or how long it had been opened. The best you can do is when was the last modification or read access.

As for keeping track of your commits, SVN is good but it requires more of a central repository. I would instead suggest using 'git' as it does not need a central repository and you can initialize an active project easily, using 'git init /path/to/project'. However, neither SVN nor git can tell you how long you have been working on a file, it will only show when you committed your changes.

unSpawn · 09-22-2011, 05:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by redw0lfx

There isn't any command to track how many times a file was written to, or how long it had been opened.

Well, for one thing there's FUSE loggedfs and you probably could do something with inotify too.

redw0lfx · 09-22-2011, 05:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by unSpawn

Well, for one thing there's FUSE loggedfs and you probably could do something with inotify too.

Sorry, I should have mentioned I meant, for an existing file already. Yes, I am sure there are tools that can record access to a file, but needs to be setup a head of time, and I don't think that is what the OP was asking. Could be wrong, it's been a long day. :-)

anon02 · 09-23-2011, 01:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by redw0lfx

Sorry, I should have mentioned I meant, for an existing file already. Yes, I am sure there are tools that can record access to a file, but needs to be setup a head of time, and I don't think that is what the OP was asking. Could be wrong, it's been a long day. :-)

Ah, ok. I think I can work out an estimate and then I will go and use a versioning control system.