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From: pfalstad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul Falstad)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: setting or retaining the date of a file
Message-ID: <7718@idunno.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 30 Mar 91 07:04:11 GMT
References: <1991Mar30.054345.767@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@idunno.Princeton.EDU
Organization: League For Fighting Chartered Accountancy
Lines: 31

phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Phil Howard KA9WGN) wrote:
>I have a bunch of files in which the date of the file has a particular
>meaning to me.  I want to retain the dates.  However I also want to sort
>these files as well.  I don't want to end up with a bunch of sorted files
>dated today.

I believe the system V version of touch can change file datestamps.  At
least, /usr/5bin/touch on a SunOS system can do it.  

Of course, it's trivial to write (this is sans error checking):

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
main(argc,argv)
int argc;
char **argv;
{
struct stat buf;
struct timeval x[2];

   stat(argv[1],&buf);
   x[0].tv_sec = buf.st_atime;
   x[1].tv_sec = buf.st_mtime;
   utimes(argv[2],x);
}

--
Paul Falstad, pfalstad@phoenix.princeton.edu | 10 PRINT "PRINCETON CS"
[Your blood pressure just went up.]          | 20 GOTO 10
Princeton University would like to apologize to everyone for this article.