get the last modification data of a file in git repo

Question

Im trying to find the command to get the last modified date of a file in a local git repo.

Created the repo and have done one commit. Had to edit one file and will commi

Answer 1

MitchellK's answer exactly fit my needs, setting my local files' last written times to what's in git. Here's a little C# LinqPad script to automate the process:

var root = new DirectoryInfo(@"C:\gitlab\mydirectory\");

Directory.SetCurrentDirectory(root.FullName); // Give git some context

var files = root.GetFiles("*.*", SearchOption.AllDirectories);

foreach (var file in files)
{
  var results = Util.Cmd("git", 
                         $"log -1 --pretty=\"format:%ci\" \"{file.FullName}\"",
                         true);
  
  var lastUpdatedString = results.FirstOrDefault();
  if (lastUpdatedString == null)
  {
    Console.WriteLine($"{file.FullName} did not have a last updated date!!");
    continue;
  }
  
  var dt = DateTimeOffset.Parse(lastUpdatedString);
  if (file.LastWriteTimeUtc != dt.UtcDateTime)
  {
    Console.WriteLine($"{file.FullName}, {file.LastWriteTimeUtc} => {dt.UtcDateTime}");
    file.LastWriteTimeUtc = dt.UtcDateTime;
  }
  else
  {
    Console.WriteLine($"{file.FullName} already updated.");
  }
}

Answer 2

Git doesn't record the last modification date, only the commit/author dates for a all commit (which can include more than one file).

You would need to run a script in order to amend a commit with the last modification date of a particular file (not very useful if said commit has more than one file in it).
See an example at "Git: Change timestamp after pushing".

Another option would be to record those timestamp in a separate file, and amend your commit that way: see "What's the equivalent of use-commit-times for git?".

That includes:

1. mtimestore - core script providing 3 options:
   • -a (save all - for initialization in already existing repo (works with git-versed files)),
   • -s (to save staged changes), and
   • -r to restore them.
2. pre-commit hook
3. post-checkout hook

Incidentally, this is the post where I explained 5 years ago why Git doesn't record timestamps.

Answer 3

The correct way to do this is to use git log as follows.

git log -1 --pretty="format:%ci" /path/to/repo/anyfile.any)

-1 restricts it to the very last time the file changed

%ci is just one of the date formats you can choose from others here at https://git-scm.com/docs/pretty-formats

This method is fool proof and 100% accurate.