You can use the following syntax in PowerShell to get the LastWriteTime property of a specific file:
$file_dt = (Get-Item players.txt).LastWriteTime
This particular example returns the LastWriteTime property of the file named players.txt in our current directory and saves it in a variable named $file_dt.
Once you’ve obtained this value, you can then compare it to another datetime in PowerShell.
The following example shows how to do so in practice.
Example: How to Compare LastWriteTime of File in PowerShell
We can use the following syntax to get the LastWriteTime property of the file named players.txt in our current directory:
$file_dt = (Get-Item players.txt).LastWriteTime
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
We can see that this file has the following LastWriteTime value:
- Wednesday, June 5, 2024 8:05:22 AM
We can then use the Get-Date cmdlet to obtain the current date and time when this article is being written:
$current_dt = Get-Date
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
This returns the following date and time:
- Saturday, June 22, 2024 3:48:10 PM
We could use the -lt operator to check if the LastWriteTime property of our file is “less than” (i.e. earlier than) the current date and time:
$file_dt -lt $current_dt
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
This returns True since the LastWriteTime property of our file is indeed earlier than the current date and time.
We could also use the following syntax to find the difference between the LastWriteTime and the current date and time:
$current_dt - $file_dt
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
From the output we can see that there is a difference of 17 days, 7 hours, 42 minutes and 47 seconds between the LastWriteTime of the file and the current date and time.
Note: You can find the complete documentation for the Get-Date cmdlet in PowerShell here.
Related Tutorials
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in PowerShell:
How to Use Get-Date and Display Timezone in PowerShell
How to Compare Dates in PowerShell
How to Format a DateTime in PowerShell
How to Calculate Date Difference in PowerShell
