Renaming files without preserving their date and creation time

I want to rename files but without preserving their original date and creation times.So far, Ive tried two options:

OPTION 1:

dos(['copy "' old_name'" "' new_name'"']); dos(['del "' old_name]);

OPTION 2: dos(['ren "' old_name'" "' new_name'"']);

... but both of them create the new files, yet preserving the original creation date/time. Can anyone help me?

thanks!

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

See the "copy" command of the second Answer in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/51435/windows-version-of-the-unix-touch-command

It is a hack, but an amusing one. It works by saying to copy the file with something appended to it, but leaving what is to be appended empty. The file gets copied and because of the marker to append, the time gets updated.

Or see the last answer in the above link, that points to http://www.funduc.com/fstouch.htm -- note that can be run from the command line as well. It would probably be much faster than the "copy" version.

[Mario Trevino]

first option worked. great, thanks.

what about modifying the creation date? do you know how to do that?

[Walter Roberson]

It appears to me that that fstouch program might be able to do that.

[Mario Trevino]

yes it seems so. thanks Walter! mario