Getting a file's timestamp and storing this as a variable

buz260 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello. I have previously been using -M $filename to get the timestamp (how long ago the file $filename was last updated):

if (-M $outputfile < $timeforfiletoupdate_beforeerror) {
   # etc
}
[download]

However I'd like to be able to store this value in a variable rather than just use it in conditional statments... Is there a way of doing this? Thanks

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Re: Getting a file's timestamp and storing this as a variable by gwadej (Chaplain) on Apr 16, 2009 at 13:29 UTC
Unless I'm missing something obvious... `my $timestamp = -M $outputfile;` [download] Very often, in Perl, a good answer is to type the code that would work if Perl did what you want. Often, it does. G. Wade	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Getting a file's timestamp and storing this as a variable by ikegami (Patriarch) on Apr 16, 2009 at 14:02 UTC
`-M` is just a weirdly named function, really. `if (-M $outputfile < $timeforfiletoupdate_beforeerror) { # etc }` [download] is the same as `if (-M($outputfile) < $timeforfiletoupdate_beforeerror) { # etc }` [download] And like every other function, nothing's stopping you from assigning its result to a variable. `$days_since = -M $outputfile;` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]