http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=741594

walkingthecow has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

if (-M FILE > 5) { ... }

Alright, so I know how to test to see when a file was last modified; now I am trying to figure out how to test to see when a file was created. Why? See below for a reason. Maybe there is a different approach to solve this problem...

I have a script that allows the person using it to create a file that stores data (text). However, after about a week this data is usually out-of-date (expired), therefore I do not want the user to use this data file any longer. Everytime the script runs, it will write to this file, so using the -M flag will not work since the file will always be up-to-date. So, how can I test when the script first created the file? I guess I could put a timestamp on the file, and then test that way, but can anyone think of any other ways to do this?