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How to read file properties in C ?

I need to read the file properties in C. Specifically, I need to read the times of creation, modification of the file. Does anyone know which function can achive this in C language? I know the functions suitable for this in Visual Basic, but I don't know how to do it in C.

Thanks in advance for your help.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

cameron_schuler

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timbauer

If you want to do this in Windows you probably want
GetFileAttributes()
or
GetFileAttributesEx()
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/fileio/base/getfileattributesex.asp

GetFileAttributesEx
Gives more fine grained information.

All of the file management functions are at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/fileio/base/file_management_functions.asp

Hope this helps
- Tim

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timbauer

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yangye

ASKER

Thanks cameron_schuler and timbauer. I just need to do it on DOS (standard C), so I think stat() is a suitable one. Now I have a question, how can I print out the time_t value like a string? I.e., the last modified time of the file "st_mttime" is in time_t structure, I need to record that in a file, so I tried to use

char filename[100];
char recordtime[100];
struct stat buf[1000];
......
stat (filename, buf);
strcpy(recordtime, but->st_mttime);

then tried to write the recordtime to a file (I know how to do this).
......

When I debug, stat(filename, buf) was successeed, but strcpy(recordtime, buf->st_mttime) was failed. Any suggestions? Thanks a lot.

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cameron_schuler

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yangye

ASKER

Thanks everyone.

ankuratvb

In dos ,you can simply use ctime:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>

int main(void)
{
time_t t;
time(&t);
printf("Today's date and time: %s\n", ctime(&t));
return 0;
}

yangye

ASKER

ankuratvb, I question is how to read the properties of a file, such as its created time, modified time, et al, rather than read the current CPU time. But thank you for the help all the same.

ankuratvb

Hi yangye,

I guess my example got you there.
In the assisted solution,the time used is of the type time_t
>time_t test;

ctime is a function that converts a time_t type to string so you can convert your date-time of creation of ur file into string using ctime().
Thats all.ctime() just simplifies your conversion of time to string.

replace:

>time_string = sprintf("%04d%02d%02d %02d:%02d:%02d", >test.tm_year + 1900, test.tm_mon+1, test.tm_mday, >test.tm_hour, test.tm_min, test.tm_sec);

with

time_string=ctime(&test);

yangye

ASKER

Thanks ankuratvb. You are right. I can use your second comment as an alternative to convert the time to string. I would like to accept your comment as another assistant answer, but since I had accepted answers yesterday, so I have used up the point and couldn't do that again. Sorry about that and thank you for all of your help.

ankuratvb

Glad to be of help....