File creation date not modification date

kent 41

File creation date not modification date

I would like to know the creation date of my files. When I look at properties I only see modification dates. Is there a way to see when a file was created


arndt

No. Unix doesn't keep that information. It keeps three dates: last write, last read and last status change. The last one is involved in permission changes and name changes. To see it, use

Code: ls -lc

see:- http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/faq/part3/section-1.html


jnoreiko:-

That FAQ doesn't really help -- it says linux doesn't store creation date, but why on earth not?
It's quite a useful thing to know.


arndt:-

I googled a bit, but didn't find anything clear on the subject (in the news groups comp.unix.*, there have been discussions about it from time to time). Back when Unix was designed, having a fourth date in inodes was probably felt to take too much space. I seem to remember having read something about it in a book about Unix, but that's no big help, I guess.


vivek gite:-


inode data structure limitations is main reason to this kind of limitations.This is done to save disk space and to optimize performance. You can view data strcture by in Linux kernel source tree and fs.h header file.