Creation Date issue

[benwiggy]

I've just noticed that I've got loads of files whose Creation Date is 1 Jan 1970 ("zero" day!). Most of them are downloads, but some are files and folders I've created.
So I'm wondering:
1. Is this indicative of any file system problem? Disk Utility find no errors.

2. Any particular reason this happens, or way to avoid it? (Particularly with the downloads.)

I've found this natty little line to change the Creation Date to the Modified Date:

SetFile -d "$(GetFileInfo -m test.txt)" <file>

[benwiggy]

Update: what's weird is that some files are 1:00 on 1 Jan 1970, and others are 13:00. I've also got some that are 2 Jan 1970 1:00.

I'm trying to create a script that will set the Creation date to the Modification date for these files (see my other thread in Unix -Beginners), just to make things a little more accurate.

[trevor]

Quote: Originally Posted by benwiggy 1. Is this indicative of any file system problem? Disk Utility find no errors.

It's doubtful that a file system problem would show in that way. It probably just means that the date has been zeroed.

Quote: Originally Posted by benwiggy 2. Any particular reason this happens, or way to avoid it? (Particularly with the downloads.)

Sorry, I've got no useful feedback here. I don't know of any way to avoid it, perhaps someone else will be more helpful.

Trevor

[hayne]

I suspect that these files came from a (foreign, non-HFS) filesystem that does not store creation dates. E.g. the standard Unix filesystems store the date of last access, date of last change of permissions etc, and date of change of file content, but do not store the date of creation of a file.