How do I display a file's last modified date?

mattadams1983 · October 26, 2016, 3:59pm

I'm using a script that I need to get a file's "last modified date" in a format like 01:51:14 PM. We are running on AIX 6.1.0.0. I can't seem to find the right command parameters. Help!

vgersh99 · October 26, 2016, 4:24pm

the trick to get the last modified time in epoch:

cpio -o 2>/dev/null <<EOF | od -d |  awk '
   NR == 2 {print $2 * 65536 - $3;exit}'
   myFile
EOF

Given epoch time, you can convert it to human-readable format.

Do you have truss on AiX?
If so, you may truss this:

truss -f -v 'lstat,lstat64' ls -d myFile 2>&1 | grep 't ='

I guess in perl you can do it in one swoop.

NOTE: use 'nawk' on Solaris

mattadams1983 · October 26, 2016, 4:29pm

vgersh99:

the trick to get the last modified time in epoch:
cpio -o 2>/dev/null <<EOF | od -d |  awk '
   NR == 2 {print $2 * 65536 - $3;exit}'
   dccfg_resmgr
EOF
Given epoch time, you can convert it to human-readable format.
I guess in perl you can do it in one swoop.

NOTE: use 'nawk' on Solaris

---------- Post updated at 03:29 PM ---------- Previous update was at 03:28 PM ----------

Thanks for the reply. WHERE do I reference the file I'm waring the date on? HOW can I assign the output of this code to a variable to be used in a script?

vgersh99 · October 26, 2016, 4:31pm

modified the original reply - now it should be obvious.

NoLogic001 · October 27, 2016, 5:02am

What about

istat "filename"

?