windows timestamps

[comfort_17]

Please could someone tell me how to access the time details of a file. THese canbe seen in any file by rightclicking on the icon and selecting properties. THe times displayed are "created" and "modified". FOr my dissertation i have to create a C: program that checks to see if these two times are identicle. if not the program suggests the program has been altered. Does anyone know how to point to these times? please help, just weeks left!!!!! :(

[DrPC]

You need to use a function called _fstat. Do you have access to MSDN. This will give you a full explanation on how to use this function. I've pasted in a copy of the example which is included in the help. This reports the size and modification time. I'm sure you can modify this to report the info you need. Other parameters stored in the structure returned include:

st_atime

Time of last file access.

st_ctime

Time of creation of file.

st_dev

If a device, handle; otherwise 0.

st_mode

Bit mask for file-mode information. The _S_IFCHR bit is set if handle refers to a device. The _S_IFREG bit is set if handle refers to an ordinary file. The read/write bits are set according to the file’s permission mode. _S_IFCHR and other constants are defined in SYS\STAT.H.

st_mtime

Time of last modification of file.

st_nlink

Always 1 on non-NTFS file systems.

st_rdev

If a device, handle; otherwise 0.

st_size

Size of the file in bytes.


/* FSTAT.C: This program uses _fstat to report
* the size of a file named F_STAT.OUT.
*/

#include <io.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

void main( void )
{
struct _stat buf;
int fh, result;
char buffer[] = "A line to output";

if( (fh = _open( "f_stat.out", _O_CREAT | _O_WRONLY |
_O_TRUNC )) == -1 )
_write( fh, buffer, strlen( buffer ) );

/* Get data associated with "fh": */
result = _fstat( fh, &buf );

/* Check if statistics are valid: */
if( result != 0 )
printf( "Bad file handle\n" );
else
{
printf( "File size : %ld\n", buf.st_size );

printf( "Time modified : %s", ctime( &buf.st_ctime ) );
}
_close( fh );
}


Output

File size : 0
Time modified : Tue Mar 21 15:23:08 1995

[DrPC]

Sorry, seem to have lost the include's on the past:

io.h
fcntl.h
time.h
sys/types.h
sys/stat.h
stdio.h
stdlib.h
string.h

[comfort_17]

Sorry, i dont know what MSDN is. could you email me the details of this direct to comfort_17@yahoo.com

[HackinCowboy]

MSDN = Microsoft Developer Network
It's basically a really big tutorial. Very helpful. You can search for any function, property, or pretty much anything having to do with languagues offered in Visual Studio.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/