How to set file creation time in Linux

Ian Knight · 05-06-2003, 04:22 PM

Hello,

I’m new to Linux (Redhat) and just started C programming on it today, however I do have many year of C on other platforms.

What I’m writing is a file copy utility that will recures down a directory tree and copy files into a single directory. However, I when I create/open the new file to write in, I wish to preserve the file creation time of the original file. Now I have found the utime() function that will allow me to change the access and modified times but can’t find a function to set the file creation time… Can you help please.

Brgds Ian Knight

ian@eqmc2.fsnet.co.uk

Tinkster · 05-06-2003, 05:47 PM

I'd recommend grabbing the source for
GNU fileutils and have a close look at
cp.c ... because if used with the -p
flag it manages to copy a file and preserve
the creation time :)

Cheers,
Tink