Created Date in JavaDoc

Question

I am developing a Java library and I am trying to define a good header through JAutoDoc.

It works fine, but I cannot figure out how to automatically determine the file creation date. There is a variable called date, but it returns the current date, not the file creation date. If I use this variable, I will have the whole header with the same date.

Does anyone know a solution to this problem?

Thanks, Luke

Answer 1

I don’t think you can find a way to automatically create the file creation time. Of course, most operating systems offer different timestamps (created, available, modified), but it may not be easy to get this information.

More problematic is the following: if you use some kind of SCM system for your code such as git or svn, and you (or some other person collaborating with this project), check the new version of your code, then the files will have a creation time, such same as the time of verification, not the time when you originally created the verified file.

So, in this case, you cannot automatically get the file creation time for javadoc.

I would suggest that you define a template for new files in your development environment that inserts when creating the actual time as part of the javadoc file and which will not be changed later.