Random attribute change

[mrsandman35]

Hi!

I am wondering, is it possible with php to change a file's attribute randomly between 2 dates?
For instance, get a date between 01-01-2007 and 17-07-2007 and use that date to change a file's creation date?
If it's possible it would be great in a batch ofcourse, like batching an entire folder, changing attributes of 1000 files by hand is quite difficult.

Thanks in advance!

Regards

[devinemke]

1. create an array of timestamps between 2 dates using [man]range[/man].
2. spool your directory into an array using [man]scandir[/man]
3. loop thru the array using [man]foreach[/man]
4. on each loop iteration [man]touch[/man] each file using a random timestamp from the timestamp array using [man]array_rand[/man]

[mrsandman35]

Hi and thanks for your reply..

Though i had to try something different since scandir is from php 5 which i don't have (somewhere in 4..)

So i came up with this:

<?php
$directory = 'swf';
$directory_stream = @ opendir ($directory)
    or die ("Could not open <i>$directory</i>");

while ($entry = readdir ($directory_stream)) {

$randomday=mt_rand(1,30);
$randommonth=mt_rand(9,12);
$year="2006";

 if ($randommonth == 9)
	{
		$randommonth="September";
	}
if ($randommonth == 10)
	{
		$randommonth="Oktober";
	}
if ($randommonth == 11)
	{
		$randommonth="November";
	}
if ($randommonth == 12)
	{
		$randommonth="December";
	}


$file=$directory."/".$entry;
$new_date = strtotime($randomday." ".$randommonth." ".$year); // set the required date timestamp here
echo $new_date."<br>";
touch($file,$new_date);
echo "<br />\n$entry<br>";
}
?>

And though it works, it works partially, i get random dates for a whole folder, but some files in that particular folder have really weird dates like the year 1607 or something like that.

I echoed the output and this is what php gave me:

1165532400 // echo the date

Warning: utime failed: Operation not permitted in /var/www/testsite/dirarray.php on line 51 // Permisson problem?

. // Ok this is a directory level
-1

Warning: utime failed: Operation not permitted in /var/www/testsite/dirarray.php on line 51 // Permisson problem?

.. // Directory level as well so..
-1

00020.jpg // filename
1162335600 // new date, is ok

00001.jpg // filename
1162681200 // new date, is ok

00002.jpg
1159567200

00003.jpg
1159480800

00004.jpg
1166914800

00005.jpg
1158703200

00006.jpg
-1 // So why does this not work?

00007.jpg
1166914800

00008.jpg
1164063600

---

So i'm wondering; i apparantly do not have permissions to change certain files? i chown'ed the folder to 'nobody', which is, as far as i know, used by php.
But i didn't chown all the files in there, could that be something?

And the other most important think, is that some files get -1, which is the error returned by php if something goes wrong, but i'm nog getting the the error stated at the beginning about the permissions (if it's permissions anyway..)

So the big question is: What is going wrong? I'm confused..

Any help greatly appreciated!

[NogDog]

From looking at a couple different manpages for touch, it appears that:

If changing both the access and modification times to the
current time, touch can change the timestamps for files
that the user running it does not own but has write per-
mission for. Otherwise, the user must own the files.

So with what you are attempting to do with the random times, it would appear that you do need to be the file owner.