Mismatch between file creation time and current time in Python

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Why is the file creation time less than the time measured before it is created?

import os, time

before_creation = time.time()

with open('my_file', 'w') as f:
    f.write('something')

creation_time = os.stat('my_file').st_ctime

print(before_creation)  # 1545031532.8819697
print(creation_time)    # 1545031532.8798425
print(before_creation < creation_time)  # False

Edit OS is Linux

python-3.x time linux file python
1 Answers
  • Since OS module is from CPython and designed initally for the python 2.x versions. If you run your code in 2.7 version it returns the same value for before_creation and creation_time. Since, the result is limited to 2 decimal places only in 2.x version.
    eg., 1545073155.03
  • Also, you have to note that when you do print(os.stat('my_file')) we get
    posix.stat_result(st_mode=33204, st_ino=12, st_dev=1792, st_nlink=1, st_uid=488, st_gid=487, st_size=0, st_atime=1545073155, st_mtime=1545073155, st_ctime=1545073155)
  • And if you do print(os.stat('my_file')[9]) we get 1545073155
    As far as solution, you might have to use the time.time() to get the time after creation.
    Considering this there might be a bug during the conversion from int to float of the st_ctime.
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