Get file modification date/time in Bash script

cmfarley19 · 03-29-2004, 10:10 AM

Greeting all.

I am modifying a bash script that generates a web based photo album from a directory of photos.

I want to add text below the thumbnail that displays the date the photo was taken ( file created ).

The stat command gives me part of what I need:

Code:

[cfarley@wombat cfarley]$ stat -c %y test.txt
2004-02-20 14:10:37.000000000 -0500

or

Code:

[cfarley@wombat cfarley]$ stat -c %Y test.txt
1077304237

Is there a command I can pipe the output of stat to that will return the date only?

Any thoughts?

CMF

jim mcnamara · 03-29-2004, 10:49 AM

Code:

$ stat -c %Y test.txt | sed 's/test.txt//'

Hko · 03-29-2004, 11:06 AM

Code:

stat -c %y test.txt | cut -d ' ' -f1

or, using sed:

Code:

stat -c %y test.txt | sed 's/^\([0-9\-]*\).*/\1/'

Or use bash' string manipulation (may be a little faster):

Code:

MODDATE=$(stat -c %y test.txt)
MODDATE=${MODDATE%% *}
echo $MODDATE

cmfarley19 · 03-29-2004, 12:05 PM

Excellent.
Those seem to work.
Still interested in seeing other solutions.

J_Szucs · 04-23-2004, 08:42 AM

[cfarley@wombat cfarley]$ stat -c %y test.txt | awk '{ printf $1 "\n"}'

cmfarley19 · 04-23-2004, 09:33 AM

JSzucs...
I tried your suggestion and

Code:

stat -c %Y vs.exe | awk '{printf $1 "\n"}'

and

Code:

stat -c %Y vs.exe

yield the same results.

J_Szucs · 04-23-2004, 06:27 PM

Sure.

However, my suggestion was not:
stat -c %Y vs.exe | awk '{printf $1 "\n"}'

but:
stat -c %y vs.exe | awk '{printf $1 "\n"}'

Please note that letter "y" is lower case in my code. It makes a great difference!

As for the code: it uses awk, which I found one of the most useful tools (almost like grep or sed).
awk treats the input line as a (database) record containing fields, using (by default) the space character as the field separator (but a different field separator can be specified in the command).
Then you can refer to any field of the line using its index ($1, $2, $3, etc.)
Examples:
stat -c %y vs.exe | awk '{printf $1 ":" $3 "\n"}'
will print the first and the third fields on each line, putting ":" between the fields.
stat -c %y vs.exe | awk '{printf $1 ":" $3 }'
will print the same, but on one single output line, because there is no newline "\n" specified.

Apart from just printing specific parts (fields) of each line, you can perform calculations or sums based on them, and all in one command line.

Just google the web for awk examples.

brsa · 11-06-2007, 01:02 PM

Thanks, your hints were useful! Another way is to simply use date instead of stat:

Code:

date -r $file +%F

See man date for more infos.

errigour · 06-26-2010, 08:51 PM

I browsed google for a way to use a bash script for printing the date of files onto an html page I have going that indexes files in my directory. http://relik.ath.cx/unused/ should show you what Im talking about. Anways I wanted to know if there was a way I could make
MODDATE=$(stat -c %y test.txt)
MODDATE=${MODDATE%% *}
print out the time and maybe the permissions of the file.
http://relik.ath.cx/unused/xhtml_html for anyone that wants a directory index just run this script in a place that doesn't have an index.html file you plan on keeping and contains html files you want listed.