Exact timestamp for sorting and renaming files according to
creation order
Dan Nelson
dnelson at allantgroup.com
Tue Jan 3 20:49:08 UTC 2012
In the last episode (Jan 03), Polytropon said:
> For a sorting script, I'm currently searching for a method to get file
> creation date and time as exactly as possible. The best resolution I
> could get was seconds. In case more than one file is created within the
> same second, it doesn't work precisely enough. It should work from sh
> script.
>
> For the purpose of preparing the sort list (that will be sorted and then
> be used as a template for renaming the files with a prefix and a counter),
> I'm using the "stat" program which creates output like this:
>
> % stat -f "%N %B" -t "%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M:%S" 1.txt
> 1.txt 2012-01-03_12:12:12
>
> It's also possible to use the Epoch time format, but it doesn't provide a
> solution better than seconds:
>
> % stat -f "%N %B" -t "%s" 1.txt
> 1.txt 1325589132
If you ask for the date to be printed in "float" (F) format, it gives more
precision. The default is unsigned int (U) format.
% stat -f "%N %FB" /COPYRIGHT
/COPYRIGHT 1306190895.046721049
> I've read the manuals for stat as well as for strftime (which is the
> facility stat's -t parameter addresses), but found nothing that is more
> precise than seconds.
>
> Does anyone have a suggestion how to precisely determine the order files
> have been created?
--
Dan Nelson
dnelson at allantgroup.com
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