Determine file creation date in Java

Question

There is another similar question to mine on StackOverflow  How to get creation date of a file in Java   but the answer isn t really there as the OP had a different need that could be solved via other mechanisms   I am trying to create a list of the files in a directory that can be sorted by age  hence the need for the file creation date   I haven t located any good way to do this after much trawling of the web   Is there a mechanism for getting file creation dates   BTW  currently on a Windows system  may need this to work on a Linux system as well   Also  I can t guarantee that a file naming convention would be followed where the creation date time is embedded in the name

User · Answer

Java nio has options to access creationTime and other meta-data as long as the filesystem provides it  Check this link out  For example Provided based on  ydaetskcoR s comment    Path file        BasicFileAttributes attr   Files readAttributes file  BasicFileAttributes class    System out println  creationTime      attr creationTime     System out println  lastAccessTime      attr lastAccessTime     System out println  lastModifiedTime      attr lastModifiedTime

User · Answer

On a Windows system  you can use free FileTimes library   This will be easier in the future with Java NIO 2  JDK 7  and the java nio file attribute package   But remember that most Linux filesystems don t support file creation timestamps

User · Answer

As a follow-up to this question - since it relates specifically to creation time and discusses obtaining it via the new nio classes - it seems right now in JDK7 s implementation you re out of luck  Addendum  same behaviour is in OpenJDK7   On Unix filesystems you cannot retrieve the creation timestamp  you simply get a copy of the last modification time  So sad  but unfortunately true  I m not sure why that is but the code specifically does that as the following will demonstrate   import java io IOException  import java nio file    import java nio file attribute     public class TestFA     static void getAttributes String pathStr  throws IOException       Path p   Paths get pathStr       BasicFileAttributes view          Files getFileAttributeView p  BasicFileAttributeView class                 readAttributes        System out println view creationTime     is the same as   view lastModifiedTime           public static void main String   args  throws IOException       for  String s   args            getAttributes s

User · Answer

I ve solved this problem using JDK 7 with this code   package FileCreationDate   import java io File  import java io IOException  import java nio file Files  import java nio file Path  import java nio file attribute BasicFileAttributes  import java util Date  import java util concurrent TimeUnit   public class Main       public static void main String   args             File file   new File  c   1 txt            Path filePath   file toPath             BasicFileAttributes attributes   null          try                       attributes                       Files readAttributes filePath  BasicFileAttributes class                     catch  IOException exception                        System out println  Exception handled when trying to get file                          attributes      exception getMessage                       long milliseconds   attributes creationTime   to TimeUnit MILLISECONDS           if  milliseconds  gt  Long MIN VALUE   amp  amp   milliseconds  lt  Long MAX VALUE                         Date creationDate                       new Date attributes creationTime   to TimeUnit MILLISECONDS                 System out println  File     filePath toString       created                         creationDate getDate                                creationDate getMonth     1                               creationDate getYear     1900

User · Answer

The API of java io File only supports getting the last modified time  And the Internet is very quiet on this topic as well   Unless I missed something significant  the Java library as is  up to but not yet including Java 7  does not include this capability  So if you were desperate for this  one solution would be to write some C     code to call system routines and call it using JNI  Most of this work seems to be already done for you in a library called JNA  though    You may still need to do a little OS specific coding in Java for this  though  as you ll probably not find the same system calls available in Windows and Unix Linux BSD OS X

User · Answer

This is a basic example of how to get the creation date of a file in Java  using BasicFileAttributes class      Path path   Paths get  C   Users  jorgesys  workspaceJava  myfile txt        BasicFileAttributes attr      try       attr   Files readAttributes path  BasicFileAttributes class       System out println  Creation date      attr creationTime           System out println  Last access date      attr lastAccessTime           System out println  Last modified date      attr lastModifiedTime           catch  IOException e        System out println  oops error      e getMessage

User · Answer

in java1 7   You can use this code to get file s create time    private static LocalDateTime getCreateTime File file  throws IOException           Path path   Paths get file getPath             BasicFileAttributeView basicfile   Files getFileAttributeView path  BasicFileAttributeView class  LinkOption NOFOLLOW LINKS           BasicFileAttributes attr   basicfile readAttributes            long date   attr creationTime   toMillis            Instant instant   Instant ofEpochMilli date           return LocalDateTime ofInstant instant  ZoneId systemDefault

[java] Determine file creation date in Java

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