How to? Backup and restore timestamps of files?

[Inds]

So I came across a script by someone which succeeds in backing up and restoring modification dates only but not creation.

pdir /(fpn"|"dy/m/d"|"th:m:s) /T:w /a:-d * >c:\flist.txt
for /f "tokens=1,2,3 delims=|" %a in (@c:\flist.txt) do touch /d%b /t%c "%a"

Is there a script in TCC LE that'll copy both the timestamps of every file in a given folder and then restore it should these timestamps ever change because a file got accidentally modified etc.?

Thanks.

 

[Steve Fabian]

The TOUCH command can set any one of the three timestamps (acw) of a file. To modify more than one you need to use multiple TOUCH commands.

BTW, in most circumstances the creation and access dates refer to a specific copy of a file, and the write (also known as modification) date to when content was last modified. I have thousands of files created (i.e., copied to their current location) this year, but last modified more than a decade ago.I found nearly no use for the creation date in my several decades of software development.

 

[Inds]

I'm not a software developer but I find creation dates extremely important. When I backed up all my personal stuff (much of it original) for the first few times as a young kid, I didn't realize winzip didn't preserve creation date so now I'm stuck with a lot of files that I editted multiple times over several years where I really wish I knew the exact date of origin. How old was I when I first started on this project, was it summer or winter etc. Doc files store the timestamp internally and I was really glad to see the create time, last print time etc. Brought back a lot of memories. To me losing this piece of metadata is as bad as not having the song/pic/doc at all. This is when I got into preserving mod dates (or just making file read-only) essentially treating the mod time as the creation time because the creation date would be the same for thousands of files before 2004 on the date that I copied from the ZIP backup after a disaster. I use WinRAR now but it doesn't preserve mod time of folders upon repacking because windows automatically updates the timestamp. So now I just do what an adult does and backup the entire disk image.

 

[Steve Fabian]

For files where creation date is relevant, such as legal documents and source code (e.g., for copyright, legal or historical reasons), I always entered it in the file body. or named the file by its creation stamp, e.g., yyyymmdd\hhmmss.*. I had worked on too many disparate systems to trust the file system to retain the information.