Can the creation date of a SHP file be retrieved via a MAPSERVER call?

[Bob Basques]

Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> Bob Basques wrote:
>   
>> All,
>>
>> Can the creation date of a SHP file be retrieved via a MAPSERVER call?
>>     
>
> Bob,
>
> No mechanism exists to get at this from a CGI or mapscript point of view.
>   
I thought about that, I also thought about using Metadata in the 
MapFile, IT just seems like a thing that should be available for some 
reason.  :c)

I also thought about using a Web call to a Web Service that could read 
the info ala a folder list display and pass that into the CGI call to 
mapserver, but then I would need to rig up some access to the SHP file 
itself on the server which didn't seem quite right either.

Hmmm, I wonder what it would take to add this into MapServer, I mean, 
it's opening the file anyway, right . . . .

The end product is to display a "Last Updated" message beneath some 
attribute data.being displayed.

A last thought is to use the SHP file itself to store the data with an 
additional column.  That seems like overkill too though.

bobb