Shell Script To Read File Date – Last Access / Modification Time

A shell script to display file date in following format:

+ Time of last access
+ Time of last modification
+ Time of last change

Please note that UNIX / Linux filesystem never stores file creation date / time stamp.
This script use stat command to find out information about file date and time using custom field format.

#!/bin/bash


# Write a shell script to display / read file date / time in following format:


# Time of last access


# Time of last modification


# Time of last change


# -------------------------------------------------------------------------


# Copyright (c) 2007 nixCraft project <http://cyberciti.biz/fb/>


# This script is licensed under GNU GPL version 2.0 or above


# -------------------------------------------------------------------------


# This script is part of nixCraft shell script collection (NSSC)


# Visit http://bash.cyberciti.biz/ for more information.


# -------------------------------------------------------------------------


FILE="$1"


 


# make sure we got file-name as command line argument 


if [ $# -eq 0 ]


then


 echo "$0 file-name"


 exit 1


fi


 


which stat > /dev/null


 


# make sure stat command is installed 


if [ $? -eq 1 ]


then


 echo "stat command not found!"


 exit 2


fi


 


# make sure file exists 


if [ ! -e $FILE ]


then


 echo "$FILE not a file"


 exit 3


fi


 


# use stat command to get info


echo "Time of last access : $(stat -c %x $FILE)"


echo "Time of last modification : $(stat -c %y $FILE)"


echo "Time of last change : $(stat -c %z $FILE)"