Is there a way to get time of modification and/or creation on files in micropython?

[fishjoe]

Is there a way to get time of modification and/or creation on files in micropython?

many thanks.

[sosi-deadeye]

tl;dr

To get the atime, mtime and ctime you need the last 3 elements of the result from os.stat("path")
A shortcut for this:

import os

atime, mtime, ctime = os.stat("/boot.py")[-3:]

timestamp > datetime-object

The existing micropython-datetime library has no support for fromtimestamp, but a datetimeobject can deal with addition or substraction of timedelta objects.

On different platforms are different offsets used.
On an ESP32 it's: 2000-01-01 00:00 (I guessed it)

This can be used to calculate the offset, but first you need the library. You can install the library if your controller is connected to a wifi and has an internet connection:

import mip
mip.install("datetime")

Example Code

import datetime
import os
import sys


if "ESP32" in sys.implementation._machine:
    OFFSET = datetime.datetime(2000, 1, 1, 0, 0)
else:
    OFFSET = datetime.datetime(1970, 1, 1, 0, 0)

# offsets of other boards are not tested and missing

class FileNotExistsError(OSError):
    pass


class StatsResult:
    """
    Stats result of a file or directory.
    """
    def __init__(self, file):
        self.mode, *_, self.size, self.atime, self.mtime, self.ctime = os.stat(file)            
        self.file = file

    @property
    def is_directory(self) -> bool:
        return bool(self.mode >> 14 & 1)

    @property
    def is_file(self) -> bool:
        return bool(self.mode >> 15 & 1)

    @property
    def dt_atime(self):
        return OFFSET + datetime.timedelta(seconds=self.atime)
    
    @property
    def dt_mtime(self):
        return OFFSET + datetime.timedelta(seconds=self.mtime)
    
    @property
    def dt_ctime(self):
        return OFFSET + datetime.timedelta(seconds=self.ctime)


def stats(file: str) -> StatsResult:
    """
    Stats result of a file or directory.
    """
    try:
        return StatsResult(file)
        
    except OSError as error:
        if error.args[0] == 2:
            raise FileNotExistsError(f"{file} does not exist.")
        else:
            raise

[scruss]

note: most users won't have mip unless they're running the newest of the new. upip should work

[fishjoe]

OMG this is as good as text book, not only a detailed explanation, but also a great example of code - readability.
thank you so much!!