Which is my Oldest File Geodatabase backup?

Question

I have made several backups over the years of our Enterprise Database. Sometimes I want to see some historical aspect of the data. I just realized that what I had been thinking was the oldest backup may or may not be the oldest because the file folder that stores the data (with the .gdb extension) updates simply from opening it in ArcMap (e.g. SDE_DEFAULT_BKUP.gdb was the oldest in the folder until today when I opened it to look at one of the feature classes).

How can I actually know which of these file geodatabases in my backups folder is the oldest?

Answer 1

Python can be used to get the creation time of a file. If you're using Windows you can use the following code. The output in the IDE window will be the created times of the GDBs sorted oldest first.

import os
import time

directory = r'path\to\directory\of\FGDBs'
fgdbs = [x for x in os.listdir(directory) if x.endswith('.gdb')]
gdb_dict = {}
for gdb in fgdbs:
    gdb_path = os.path.join(directory, gdb)
    t = os.path.getctime(gdb_path)
    created = time.ctime(t) #format time to readable format
    gdb_dict[gdb] = created

for item in sorted(gdb_dict.items(), key=lambda (k,v): v): #sort dictionary 
    print (item)

Answer 2

This is the same code as in @mdholl6188 's wonderful solution. I'm just adding the code that I used for sorting. I used 3 #'s to show what I added to get it to sort in a way that was meaningful for me. The rest is the same.

import os
import time
### additional module
from datetime import datetime

directory = r'path\to\directory\of\FGDBs'
fgdbs = [x for x in os.listdir(directory) if x.endswith('.gdb')]
gdb_dict = {}
for gdb in fgdbs:
    gdb_path = os.path.join(directory, gdb)
    t = os.path.getctime(gdb_path)
    created = time.ctime(t) #format time to readable format
    ### new line follows
    newtime = datetime.strptime(created, '%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y').strftime('%Y %m %d %H:%M:%S')
    gdb_dict[gdb] = newtime ### was created

for item in sorted(gdb_dict.iteritems(), key=lambda (k,v): v): #sort dictionary
    print (item)