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From: jetfuel@csusac.csus.edu (Dave Jenks)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.programmer
Subject: Re: What does the value returned by st_mtime in the stat structure mean?
Summary: stat(2)
Keywords: stat
Message-ID: <1990Dec21.052847.16202@csusac.csus.edu>
Date: 21 Dec 90 05:28:47 GMT
References: <1990Dec21.041634.12760@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>
Reply-To: jetfuel@csusac.UUCP (Dave Jenks)
Distribution: na
Organization: California State University, Sacramento
Lines: 22

In article <1990Dec21.041634.12760@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> vac269k@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au (vacation) writes:
>
>In my code I have the following lines:
>
>     stat (filename,&statbuf);
>
>     printf ("%ld",statbuf.st_mtime);
>
>This prints out a number like 661742557 for the time the contents
>of the file were last modified.
>What does this number mean and how would I convert to more
>intelligible format (such as day/month/year hour:minute) if
>possible ?

This is the number of seconds since 00:00:00 GMT  Jan  1 1970.
To convert it to something `meaningful', such as the ASCII string
in my previous sentence, use ctime(3).
-- 
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	    "Pro is to con, as progress is to Congress..."
>>-@@-> Dave Jenks              {uunet | ucbvax!ucdavis}!csusac!jetfuel
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