How do I get the file creation time with ansible on MacOS? - macos

Question

I am trying to list a set of directories with their creation times in an ansible playbook on MacOS.
The problem I have is that the file and stat modules give you the "ctime" of a file, but on MacOS this is the time of last metadata change, not the creation date.
So for example this playbook:
- name: Get dirs and create dates
hosts: localhost
tasks:
- name: make a list of dirs
find:
paths:
- "/Users/me/Work/Customers"
file_type: directory
recurse: false
register: projectdirs
- name: Dump found paths
debug:
msg: "{{ shortname }} {{ date }}"
loop: "{{ projectdirs.files }}"
loop_control:
label: "{{ item.path }}"
vars:
shortname: "{{ item.path | basename }}"
date: "{{ '%Y-%m-%d' | strftime(item.ctime) }}"
This just lists todays date as "creation" date for the directory.
ok: [localhost] => (item=/Users/me/Work/Customers/Base) => {
"msg": "basefarm 2021-08-23 1629699678.021843"
}
ok: [localhost] => (item=/Users/me/Work/Customers/Acme) => {
"msg": "Orange 2021-08-23 1629699678.5415485"
}
ok: [localhost] => (item=/Users/me/Work/Customers/Foo) => {
"msg": "VKB 2021-08-23 1629699679.0579438"
}
ok: [localhost] => (item=/Users/me/Work/Customers/Bar) => {
"msg": "LombardOdier 2021-08-23 1629699679.5856457"
}
...
I found out that the reason is of course that ctime is not the creation time on a mac...
Is there a way around this? I want the real creation date, but Ansible's stat module does not give me this. The creation date is available, as I can get it with ls -ldU for example.
So how do I solve this?

Answer 1

As far as I know, there is no way to do so without using shell command.
- name: make a list of dirs
find:
paths:
- "/Users/me/Work/Customers"
file_type: directory
recurse: false
register: projectdirs
- name: Get creation time
shell: GetFileInfo {{ item.path }} | grep 'created:'
loop: "{{ projectdirs.files }}"
loop_control:
label: "{{ item.path }}"
register: directories
- name: Dump found paths
debug:
msg: "{{ item.item.path }} {{ item.stdout.split('created: ')[1] }}"
loop: "{{ directories.results }}"
loop_control:
label: "{{ item.item.path }}"
Gives me this result :
ok: [localhost] => (item=/Users/jeromeverdoni/stackoverflow/68888321) => {
"msg": "/Users/jeromeverdoni/stackoverflow/68888321 08/23/2021 08:01:44"
}
Hope this is close enough to your expected behaviour.
For reference, GetFileInfo output :
╰─ GetFileInfo /Users/jeromeverdoni/stackoverflow/68888321
directory: "/Users/jeromeverdoni/stackoverflow/68888321"
attributes: avbstclinmedz
created: 08/23/2021 08:01:44
modified: 08/23/2021 08:03:18