Determine how long ago a file was written to

[BillAskaga]

I'd like to find out how many seconds ago a given file was last written to. I guess you can get the current time and date, as well as the modification date of the file, and calculate a difference of the two. However, i haven't been able to figure out how.

I took a look at the documentation of Date.au3 and bumped into functions returning all sorts of datetime formats and "structs" (which the core language tutorial didn't mention, sorry, I'm a noob )

I'd really appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction! Thanks!

[FireFox]

Hi,

Welcome to the autoit forum

Here you go:

#include <FileConstants.au3>
#include <Date.au3>

Local $aTime = FileGetTime(@ScriptFullPath, $FT_MODIFIED)
Local $sDate = $aTime[0] & "/" & $aTime[1] & "/" & $aTime[2] & " " & $aTime[3] & ":" & $aTime[4] & ":" & $aTime[5]

ConsoleWrite("last modified: " & _DateDiff("s", $sDate, _NowCalc()) & " seconds ago." & @CrLf)

Br, FireFox.

[Melba23]

BillAskaga,

Welcome to the AutoIt forum.

Use FileGetTime to get the "last modified" date of the file - I suggest you get the result in an array to use as below.

In order to use _DateDiff you need a specific format (YYYY/MM/DD) - so you can create that from the array elements returned from FileGetTime by doing something like this:

$sModDate = $aArray[0] & "/" & $aArray[1] & "/" & $aArray[2]

You can get the current time in the same manner using the @YEAR, @MON, & @MDAY macros or use _NowCalc (this does return the time as well, so the macros might be a better bet).

Now all you have to do is decide is how you want the return from _DateDiff to be calculated (in days and so "D" probably) and Robert is your mother's brother.

Give it a go yourself - you know where we are if you run into difficulties.

M23

Edit: I see you have already found a "fishmonger" and not a "net repairer"!

Edited August 26, 2013 by Melba23

[FireFox]

@Melba23

Your answer is for the explanation, very descriptive as usual

[BillAskaga]

@FireFox & @Melba23

Your answers have given me exactly what i needed. Thanks a lot!