= File birthtime extension for Ruby

This module extends core Ruby classes File and File::Stat with methods to query file birthtime (creation time).

== Platforms

For now, only systems with field st_birthtime in struct stat (BSDs with UFS2 support).

== Requirements

• rubygem >= 1.2
• working C compiler

== Installation

If installing to $HOME export RB_USER_INSTALL=true

=== From gem

gem install --source http://gems.github.com mwisnicki-ruby-file-birthtime

=== From source

git clone git://github.com/mwisnicki/ruby-file-birthtime.git cd ruby-file-birthtime gem build ruby-file-birthtime.gemspec gem install file-birthtime-*.gem

== Usage

require 'file_btime' # => true File.btime('.') # => Tue Jun 16 15:07:21 0200 2009 File.new('.').btime # => Tue Jun 16 15:07:21 0200 2009 File.stat('.').btime # => Tue Jun 16 15:07:21 0200 2009

Returns nil if particular filesystem does not support birthtimes (st_birthtime<0).

== TODO

1. Add necessary checks to extconf.rb
2. Port to other platforms - at least Win32, MacOSX, maybe Solaris (with ZFS).