Find the Last Modified Date of a File in Cocoa

Question

How can I find the last modified date of a file in cocoa?

Answer 1

Check out NSFileManager's

- (NSDictionary *)fileAttributesAtPath:(NSString *)path traverseLink:(BOOL)flag

the key you're interested in is NSFileModificationDate.

Answer 2

Just to update the code:

NSString * path = ... your path here ...
NSDate * fileLastModifiedDate = nil;

NSError * error = nil;
NSDictionary * attrs = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] attributesOfItemAtPath:path error:&error];
if (attrs && !error)
{
    fileLastModifiedDate = [attrs fileModificationDate];
}

Answer 3

Adding this answer here since this was the first result when I searched for how to do this, but if you're using swift you might like this extension:

extension NSFileManager {

    func modificationDateForFileAtPath(path:String) -> NSDate? {
        guard let attributes = try? self.attributesOfItemAtPath(path) else { return nil }
        return attributes[NSFileModificationDate] as? NSDate
    }

    func creationDateForFileAtPath(path:String) -> NSDate? {
        guard let attributes = try? self.attributesOfItemAtPath(path) else { return nil }
        return attributes[NSFileCreationDate] as? NSDate
    }


}