Modified dates & folders

[Juliat72]

I have just moved over to Mac after always using Windows and one if my biggest headaches is modified dates and folders. If I add or change an image file then the folder modified date changes accordingly but if I change a file (in my case an html file) then the folder date doesn't change.

I know in finder I can go into that folder and tell it to list the relevant files in modified order BUT because it doesn't change the folder date it is causing a nightmare for me as I manage some huge websites that are all folder structured and when making lots of changing to then FTP those changes is a real headache and long winded process as I have to remember what folders have been changed rather than the system detecting it and listing in folder date in my FTP program.

Is there any way of getting the folder dates to change when a file within it is modified?

 

[ScoobyMcDoo]

Two suggestions: First start using a source code control package such as git. Secondly, use rsync to do your file transfers - it will only transfer things which have changed. You will need ssh access to your server to use rsync.

 

[Juliat72]

So is there no way to get the actual system to recognise file changes rather than using lots of extra programs to do what should be a simple thing? I use one program for html editing and FTP and that should be enough really

 

[ScoobyMcDoo]

I am not aware of any way to modify the behavior of the file system.

The 2 programs I suggested are already on your system. If this is just a personal web site and you don't care about history, you can even skip the git program. rsync is very similar to ftp, but is more powerful and like I said, you already have it.

If you are unwilling to change your process, then I cannot help you.

 

[Juliat72]

OK, thanks for your reply. Really wish I hadn't swapped from Windows now

 

[ScoobyMcDoo]

I got curious about this and did a test. I had a folder which had a test "C" program in it. I touched the c source code file so it's modified data changed, but the enclosing folder did not change. So, I recompiled the program which created a new executable. This time, both he executable and the enclosing folder changed their modified date. So, I did some searching and found an explanation on the apple support communities which made sense:

Folders are nothing more then files that contain the information about the files and folders it contains.

So if you add or remove a file from a folder then the entry is added or removed from the folder 'file' and then it shows as modified. But if you modify a file in the folder nothing is changed in the the folder 'file' and hence the folder is not considered modified.

While this doesn'e solve your situation I hope it helps explain what you are seeing.

This tells me that the compiler/linker is probably deleting the original file and recreating it with the same name. So if you want to keep your same process, a work-around could be to move the edited file to another name, then rename it back o the original - or some other way to delete and recreate the file.

BTW, are you using the command-line FTP, or something like a combination of finder and cyberduck? If it is the latter, you can use spotlight to search for files by modified date.

 

[Juliat72]

Thanks again, I have read that and while yes I suppose it does make sense it is still annoying LOL

I use Dreamweaver to edit the html files and then either the inbuilt FTP client with it or FileZilla which lists the files by modified dates once you are in the folder but doesn't list the folders by the correct dates hence why this is so frustrating as there are lots of folders within one site...

 

[ScoobyMcDoo]

IIRC you can drag from finder to filezilla, so you could still use the spotlight option.