Filemanager extension / birth date / creation date of files

[SysA-Punchcard-Oldie]

Hi folks, it my very first entry here ... sure i looked around before.

linux databases have no entrys for creation date ... ok ... if it is like this i have to believe all the other discussions i have read before.

specially for pictures there is (since long time) a need to sort & handle them by creation-date.

uprising now there are requests & rules which come by national Revenue services (deutsch Finanzamt).

Bank statements in PDF-Format are common since some years. Sorrowfully banks use file names which are not useful for calender orientated sort.

Linux file mangers can only sort by last accessed or last edited. The creation data informations are visible by file properties for PDF-Files (or Picture-Files).

Users which really want to use Mint as an alternative to Windows-SW need a file handler which is able to sort by creation date.

I'm not shure wether this thread is at the correct place for this topic ... but i am very sure that users need a file-manger-implementation up to the needs described above.

Best SysA-Punchcard-Oldie

[Cosmo.]

The problem is not the file manager. Actually in some linux file systems the birth date get stored. But this doesn't help much, because there is no kernel API for accessing it. Read here. Somebody provided a workaround (not tested here).

Another workaround: Use VirtualBox, create a guest machine with Windows and store those data there. Not nice, but working (if you have a spare Windows license).

[SysA-Punchcard-Oldie]

Yes i have already read about some workaround techniques ... no way for users who just want to replace their old system with IExplorer which can handle the above requested listings. Perhaps it is really a request to make a "workaround" easy to handle within the filemanager. ~~~~

[Cosmo.]

Convince Linus

[SysA-Punchcard-Oldie]

Sry i do not understand your reply, it is just like this ... in understand what to do to have my wlan--printer operational .. but i am to old to learn something like dos oder linux shell to do my weekly occuring works. it somebody would make a desktop-integration for Gnome-Commander or Kusader or any other of available filemanagers ... this would make a lot of persons happy.Cheers. ~~~~

[Cosmo.]

This is nothing, where the developers of a desktop environment or a file manager can do something about, if the kernel does not provide a way to access data (here the birth day of files). Linus Torvalds is the chief of the Linux kernel team. My second link brings you to another link with statement by him. At least 3 years ago he was not convinced to add the needed API.

[karlchen]

What is the "birthday of a file"? - i know what is meant is the day and time when a file has been created.
Yet, this term "creation time" is not clearly definable, either.

The question still is, "What is the day and time when a file has been created?"
Created where?
Anywhere in the world? - How to find this out?
Created on the current filesystem?

To make one thing clear:
The Windows NTFS filesystem stores the "day & time when a file has been created".
But this only documents the "day & time when a file has been created on a given filesystem".
This timestamp is always specific to and valid on the filesystem on your current machine, never globally.

Let me give an example:

• Mozilla creates the new Firefox executable on 26-March-2018 19:42 CET.
  In this specific situation the timestamp of creation is identical to the timestamp of last modification. Last day & time modified is 26-March-2018 19:42 CET, too.
• You install this executable on your Windows NTFS filesystem 3 days later at exactly 12:00 CET.
  Now check the timestamps inside Explorer:
  + Created timestamp: 29-March-2018 12:00 CET
  + Last modified timestamp: 26-March-2018 19:42 CET.
  + Last accessed timestamp: 29-March-2018 12:00 CET or later.
  In particular the last accessed timestamp on Windows is pretty useless, because it does not tell you when anybody else has last accessed a file. The last access might be you by checking the file properties.

Now try to explain how the creation time of a file could be of any use really.
Even the last modified time is not reliable, because some copy commands do not preserve this timestamp from the source.

Neither time created, nor time last modified, nor time last accessed are reliable means of determining what precisely?
That a file is still genuine and has not been tampered with?
The only way of making this sure works like this:
+ the file creator creates the data file
+ the file creator also creates a checksum file for the data file (sha256 or sha512 would be sufficiently secure at the moment)
+ the file creator signs the signature file
+ the recipient of the data file verifies its checksum
+ the recipient of the data file verifies the checksum file holds the assumed creator's signature

Pretty complex, these steps, aren't they? - Oops, they remind much of the steps of verifying that a downloaded Linux Mint installation ISO image is really the genuine Linux Mint ISO image and that no-one has secretly modified it.

And now?

[SysA-Punchcard-Oldie]

Hi Buddys thx for many thoughts ... very fine ... but something which is common (and a usable help) on "Micky-Soft-Systems" should find a solution within Linux .... dosent it ???

hey it its not about looking for problems ... its about looking for needs and solutions

pls once more read my first post here. i need a sort for PDF-Files from my bank ... as other users need also.

I have no use for sort critera like "last edited" "last copied" "last modyfied" etc. BTW nobody should modify bank balances which are papers for the "finanzamt" aka national Revenue services

i need a sort according to creation date (of the file made by the bank) because the given filenames are cryptic. This (stable) creation date is stored in the original file.

Cheers SysA-Punchcard-Oldie

What I additionally should mention:

* by 25. May 2018 Germany and EU have a new Law called DSGVO (Datenschutzgrundverordnung) see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datenschu ... verordnung or https://dsgvo-gesetz.de/

* additionally we have to deal with GoBD (Buchführung und Belegerfassung) which is also to be done for private persons who make bookeeping and balances. see online PDF https://web.archive.org/web/20180402065 ... 21&header=

** Therein is a Chapter 4 according to "Umsetzung der elektronischen Aufbewahrung" translated ~ how to handle datastoring and archiving

I am not shure about consequences which can come up for linux users by this ... but i am very shure that it cannot be wrong to follow changes like them in the EU.

[karlchen]

i need a sort according to creation date (of the file made by the bank) because the given filenames are cryptic. This (stable) creation date is stored in the original file.

(Blue colour and bold letters by me to emphasize the crucial part)

This is the crucial sentence:
The relevant piece of information has not been stored by the operating system inside its directory structure as
+ file creation timestamp
+ file last modified timestamp
+ file last accessed timestamp
But the relevant piece of information has been stored inside that data file itself, by the application which has created the file.
This means that this piece of information can only be retrieved provided you know the internal file structure.

Let us assume that only the following 3 applications stored a file creation timestamp inside the data files, which they create:
+ MS Word
+ MS Excel
+ Adobe PDF file creator

In this case either the operating system or the file-manager needs to know the internal file structure of 3 applications in order to retrieve the creation timestamp inside the data files.
But there are not only 3 applications, basically the number of applications which create data files and which could store the creation timestamps inside their data files are almost unlimited.
The operating system or the file-manager would have to know an almost unlimited number of file formats? How should this be feasible? What makes it even more difficult is that a lot of applications are not open source and do not make their internal file format publically available.

Plus try to imagine the performance penalty if your file-manager has to read each and every file in a directory (at least partially) in order to display the directory listing.

~~~
The operating systems and their filesystems (NTFS, ext4, whatever) can never be responsible for storing and making available application specific internal data.
~~~

This leaves as the most likely candidates for this job the (graphical) filemanagers, like Windows Explorer, Nemo, Dolphin etc.

And this is what is available (on Windows) partially for some filemanagers:
Image applications, PDF viewers, make available certain metadata of the file formats which they handle to file-managers.
This only works in case there are interfaces between the applications and the file-managers which are well-defined and known to both sides.

More such interfaces may be available on Windows currently than on Linux.

In this specific case we are talking about PDF files and a specific data record which have been stored inside the PDF-files, the timestamp when the PDF-file has been created.

I admit that at this point in time I cannot tell whether there is any interface (plugin) which enables any of the common Linux filemanagers, Krusader, Dolphin, Nautilus, Nemo, Caja, to display such PDF-metadata.

[lsemmens]

Rather than try and stuff around with the timestamp of a file why not just rename the file to include the date on which the file was created or any other date you so desire - say using the format YYYYMMDD. e.g. 20180402_Statement.pdf

[SysA-Punchcard-Oldie]

Thanks for Hints

yeah ... to rename files according to contents is well known ... but it should be done by a utility ... shouldn'it ?

well .... for data-security reasons saved files on external disks are highly recommend ...

I did so on a "FART32" formatted ext-Disk ... by windows the creation date is now accessible ... but all of them are based on the same copy/change dates which were used on Linux-System. (using NTFS i expect nothing else ...)

==> So to have a file manager extension for Linux which evaluates the creations dates given within the file properties of files would be better than the features which can be used by "Mickey-Soft". < ==

Cheers SysA-Punchcard-Oldie


BTW my first portable machine was a Panasonic Sr. Partner portable IBM Compatible Computer (1984) see movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcIgLgQIkPs mine was the "Model: PC01, 8810/25 " with labels from NIXDORF COMPUTER (S) see http://www.computersammler.de/sammlung/ ... dorf-pc02/ Since that time I luckyly only had 3 severe system-crashes ... only 1 true-type-font was lost forever ... old diskettes should be hard-copied before use ...

[lsemmens]

yeah ... to rename files according to contents is well known ... but it should be done by a utility ... shouldn'it ?

I used to use a Utility called "Bulk File Rename" in Windows, I'd be surprised if there is not a Linux equivalent.

[Cosmo.]

Try gprename.