Get when the file was last updated from a Github repository - github

Question

I'm able to get the file contents (and if it's a folder, I'm able to get the list of files) by using the GitHub v3 API.
Example:
https://api.github.com/repos/[Owner]/[Repository]/contents/[Folder]
But how can I know when the file was last updated? Is there an API for that?

Answer 1

If you know the exact file path, you can use list commits on repository API specifying a path which only includes commits with this specific file path and then extract the most recent commit (the most recent is the first one) :
Using Rest API v3
https://api.github.com/repos/bertrandmartel/speed-test-lib/commits?path=jspeedtest%2Fbuild.gradle&page=1&per_page=1
Using curl & jq :
curl -s "https://api.github.com/repos/bertrandmartel/speed-test-lib/commits?path=jspeedtest%2Fbuild.gradle&page=1&per_page=1" | \
jq -r '.[0].commit.committer.date'
Using GraphqQL API v4
{
repository(owner: "bertrandmartel", name: "speed-test-lib") {
ref(qualifiedName: "refs/heads/master") {
target {
... on Commit {
history(first: 1, path: "jspeedtest/build.gradle") {
edges {
node {
committedDate
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
Try it in the explorer
Using curl & jq :
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type:application/json" \
-d '{
"query": "{ repository(owner: \"bertrandmartel\", name: \"speed-test-lib\") { ref(qualifiedName: \"refs/heads/master\") { target { ... on Commit { history(first: 1, path: \"jspeedtest/build.gradle\") { edges { node { committedDate } } } } } } } }"
}' https://api.github.com/graphql | \
jq -r '.data.repository.ref.target.history.edges[0].node.committedDate'

Answer 2

Using Python
pip install PyGithub
from github import Github
g = Github()
repo = g.get_repo("datasets/population")
print(repo.name)
commits = repo.get_commits(path='data/population.csv')
print(commits.totalCount)
if commits.totalCount:
print(commits[0].commit.committer.date)
Output:
population
5
2020-04-14 15:09:26
https://github.com/PyGithub/PyGithub

Answer 3

That would be surprising, considering git does not store file timestamps (and other metadata like permissions and ownership), for reasons I detailed here.
So that information is not present on the remote repository side (here GitHub) either.

Answer 4

You can actually determine what you want using the request you specifically mentioned.
Note that all dates/times below are under GMT (of course).
Copy & paste the following command to find the last modified date and time of Folder/File in repository ForStackExchange by user YenForYang:
\curl -sIA. --ignore-content-length \
-H"If-Modified-Since: Sun May 01 00:00:00 9999" \
"https://api.github.com/repos/YenForYang/ForStackExchange/contents/Folder/File?ref=branch" \
| \grep -m1 -oP "(?<=Last-Modified: )[ADFJMNOSTWa-eghilnoprtuvy0-9:, ]{25}" \
(If Perl regex isn't available, you can ... | grep -F -m1 "Last-Modified:")
The above command should return (GMT): Thu, 27 Dec 2018 11:01:26
(or later, if I update the file for some reason)
Note that if the ref parameter is unspecified, ref=master.
And if you can't copy and paste, and don't care about the API rate limits, you might opt for the shorter:
\curl -sIL "api.github.com/repos/yenforyang/forstackexchange/contents/Folder/File?ref=branch" | \grep "^Las"
And if ya don't have grep on Windows just use find "Last-Modified: " instead (doubles quotes are necessary).
And if you don't have curl on Windows (download it...or) use Powershell
(iwr -me HEAD -usebasic "https://api.github.com/repos/yenforyang/forstackexchange/contents/Folder/File?ref=branch").Headers."Last-Modified"

Answer 5

When you run a public repository with GitHub Pages and want to let your visitors know the history of a page, you can simply put the hyperlink to the https://github.com/<user>/<user>.github.io/commits/main/<path-to-file> for that page on that page.