On Windows 10 - ctime is the same as the mtime

[lawless-m]

stat.jl

mtime | Unix timestamp of when the file was last modified

ctime | Unix timestamp of when the file was created

c:\temp\test.txt

Properties tab
Created: ‎09 ‎February ‎2019, ‏‎13:16:44
Modified: 09 ‎February ‎2019, ‏‎13:16:55
Accessed: 09 ‎February ‎2019, ‏‎13:16:44

julia> Dates.unix2datetime(ctime("c:\\temp\\test.txt"))
2019-02-09T13:16:55.233

julia> Dates.unix2datetime(mtime("c:\\temp\\test.txt"))
2019-02-09T13:16:55.233

wait a few minutes, edit the file

julia> Dates.unix2datetime(mtime("c:\\temp\\test.txt"))
2019-02-09T13:25:16.394

julia> Dates.unix2datetime(ctime("c:\\temp\\test.txt"))
2019-02-09T13:25:16.394

[clouds56]

@bicycle1885 I know the ctime means "change time".
Is there anyway to access btime (birth time)?

[elextr]

Isn't ctime on windows creation time and on Linux change time?

[clouds56]

@elextr no, on windows it's just the same as mtime

[elextr]

@clouds56 what I meant was that it means different things on the underlying operating system and the Windows meaning seems to be the behaviour the OP is expecting.

But libuv deliberately makes ctime always have the linux meaning change time on all platforms. So it likely changes when a file is edited and therefore equals mtime, so the case described by the OP is expected.

But changing just the metadata (eg permissions/ACLs) should change only ctime not mtime so its not always the same.

As noted in #39731 ctime description was wrong and has been fixed, and birth time is not available on all platforms.

[elextr]

This probably should have been closed by #39731

[lawless-m]

the behaviour I was expecting was ctime was fixed at creation and mtime changed when modified

I can't remember why now, but it was something like checking if mtime > ctime to do something