Get when the file was last updated from a Github repository

Question

I'm able to get the file contents (and if it's a folder, I'm able to get the list of files) by using the GitHub v3 API. Example:

https://api.github.com/repos/[Owner]/[Repository]/contents/[Folder]

But how can I know when the file was last updated? Is there an API for that?

Answer 1

If you know the exact file path, you can use list commits on repository API specifying a path which only includes commits with this specific file path and then extract the most recent commit (the most recent is the first one) :

Using Rest API v3

https://api.github.com/repos/bertrandmartel/speed-test-lib/commits?path=jspeedtest%2Fbuild.gradle&page=1&per_page=1

Using curl & jq :

curl -s "https://api.github.com/repos/bertrandmartel/speed-test-lib/commits?path=jspeedtest%2Fbuild.gradle&page=1&per_page=1" | \
     jq -r '.[0].commit.committer.date'

Using GraphqQL API v4

{
  repository(owner: "bertrandmartel", name: "speed-test-lib") {
    ref(qualifiedName: "refs/heads/master") {
      target {
        ... on Commit {
          history(first: 1, path: "jspeedtest/build.gradle") {
            edges {
              node {
                committedDate
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Try it in the explorer

Using curl & jq :

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
     -H  "Content-Type:application/json" \
     -d '{ 
          "query": "{ repository(owner: \"bertrandmartel\", name: \"speed-test-lib\") { ref(qualifiedName: \"refs/heads/master\") { target { ... on Commit { history(first: 1, path: \"jspeedtest/build.gradle\") { edges { node { committedDate } } } } } } } }"
         }' https://api.github.com/graphql | \
     jq -r '.data.repository.ref.target.history.edges[0].node.committedDate'

Answer 2

Using Python

pip install PyGithub

from github import Github
g = Github()
repo = g.get_repo("datasets/population")
print(repo.name)
commits = repo.get_commits(path='data/population.csv')
print(commits.totalCount)
if commits.totalCount:
    print(commits[0].commit.committer.date)

Output:

population
5
2020-04-14 15:09:26

https://github.com/PyGithub/PyGithub

Answer 3

That would be surprising, considering git does not store file timestamps (and other metadata like permissions and ownership), for reasons I detailed here.

So that information is not present on the remote repository side (here GitHub) either.