How to get proper file creation date of file?

Question

I need not last modification time and not last file accessed time, but file creation time. I have not found information about this. Maybe some libs?

Path p = Pat         


        

Answer 1

As yshavit said, not all operating systems record the date created. However, you should be able to use java.nio.file to determine this information on operating systems that do have this functionality - see the documentation for files.getAttribute - note that BasicFileAttributeView has a field for creationTime.

You can use FileSystems.getDefault(); to determine what FileAttributeViews are supported on the current operating system.

Files.getAttribute(path, "basic:createdAt"); will return a FileTime object with the date the file was created on a system that supports BasicFileAttributeView. You'll have to convert it to a java.util.Date object, but I'll let you figure that out on your own.

Further Reading

• NIO API for getAttribute()
• NIO API for BasicFileAttributeView
• A tutorial for using readAttributes()
• A comprehensive tutorial on using FileAttributes
• Another StackOverflow thread on the same topic