How to get 'file creation time' in Linux

Question

I need to find out at what time and date a file has been created using C++ in Linux.

Solution

How do I get the date a file was last modified?.

struct stat attrib;                 //1. create a file attribute structure
stat("file_name", &attrib);         //2. get the attributes of afile.txt
clock = gmtime(&(attrib.st_mtime)); //3. Get the last modified time and
                                    // put it into the time structure

4.8 File Times Update:

In Linux: three distinct timestamps associated with a file:

• time of last access of contents (atime),
• time of last modification of contents (mtime),
• and time of last modification of the inode (metadata, ctime).

So, no, you cannot find file creation time. (reference). Some useful Links related to you question:

• How do I do a ls and then sort the results by date created?
• Get file created/creation time?
• A good article, "file creation times".