Shell Script To Read File Date - Last Access / Modification Time

A shell script to display file date in following format:

+ Time of last access
+ Time of last modification
+ Time of last change

Please note that UNIX / Linux filesystem never stores file creation date / time stamp.

This script use stat command to find out information about file date and time using custom field format.

#!/bin/bash
# Write a shell script to display / read file date / time in following format:
# Time of last access
# Time of last modification
# Time of last change
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Copyright (c) 2007 nixCraft project <http://cyberciti.biz/fb/>
# This script is licensed under GNU GPL version 2.0 or above
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
# This script is part of nixCraft shell script collection (NSSC)
# Visit http://bash.cyberciti.biz/ for more information.
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
FILE="$1"
 
# make sure we got file-name as command line argument
if [ $# -eq 0 ]
then
	echo "$0 file-name"
	exit 1
fi
 
which stat > /dev/null
 
# make sure stat command is installed
if [ $? -eq 1 ]
then
	echo "stat command not found!"
	exit 2
fi
 
# make sure file exists
if [ ! -e $FILE ]
then
	echo "$FILE not a file"
	exit 3
fi
 
# use stat command to get info
echo "Time of last access : $(stat -c %x $FILE)"
echo "Time of last modification : $(stat -c %y $FILE)"
echo "Time of last change : $(stat -c %z $FILE)"