Print file age in seconds using Python

Question

I need my script to download new file, if the old one is old enough. I set the maximum age of file in seconds. So that I would get back on track with my script writing I need example code, where file age is printed out in seconds.

Answer 1

This shows how to find a file's (or directory's) last modification time:

Here are the number of seconds since the Epoch, using os.stat

import os st=os.stat('/tmp')     mtime=st.st_mtime print(mtime) # 1325704746.52 

Or, equivalently, using os.path.getmtime:

print(os.path.getmtime('/tmp')) # 1325704746.52 

If you want a datetime.datetime object:

import datetime          print("mdatetime = {}".format(datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(mtime))) # mdatetime = 2012-01-04 14:19:06.523398 

Or a formated string using time.ctime

import stat print("last accessed => {}".format(time.ctime(st[stat.ST_ATIME]))) # last accessed => Wed Jan  4 14:09:55 2012 print("last modified => {}".format(time.ctime(st[stat.ST_MTIME]))) # last modified => Wed Jan  4 14:19:06 2012 print("last changed => {}".format(time.ctime(st[stat.ST_CTIME]))) # last changed => Wed Jan  4 14:19:06 2012 

Although I didn't show it, there are equivalents for finding the access time and change time for all these methods. Just follow the links and search for "atime" or "ctime".