getting the last modified date of a html file

Question

how can i figure out the last modified date of a html file im importing into my web app?

The html file is on another server and different users can make updates, when i retrieve the page i want to be able see when it was last updated so i can label the updated date on my homepage. I

Daniel Rikowski · Accepted Answer · 2008-10-15T13:36:53.450

I assume you are using HTTP to retrieve the page.

In that case you can use the HEAD method of HTTP to get the header data of the file. (See http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec9.html, 9.4)

Then you can check the "Last-Modified" header of the response. (See http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html, 14.29)

In case of some caching mechanism (proxy, browser caching) it might be necessary to include "Cache-Control: must-revalidate" in the request header. (See http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html, 14.9.4)

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 15 '08 at 08:26

7

Use the document.lastModified Javascript property.

quirksmode has a nice function to format the date too: http://www.quirksmode.org/js/lastmod.html

answered Oct 15 '08 at 08:26

michaeljoseph

7,023
5
26
27

4

I'm wondering, how does the `document.lastModified` JavaScript property actually work? I didn't know JavaScript could see when you last edited the file. Do you know how it works? – Nathan Oct 08 '11 at 16:58
@Nathan It uses the `Last-Modified` header. – Toothbrush Apr 18 '15 at 19:55

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 15 '08 at 08:29

3

You could use the Last-Modfied Header from the response headers.

The Last-Modified entity-header field indicates the date and time at which the origin server believes the variant was last modified.

   Last-Modified  = "Last-Modified" ":" HTTP-date

answered Oct 15 '08 at 08:29

Node

21,706
2
31
35

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 15 '08 at 08:30

2

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
document.write(document.lastModified);
// -->
</script>

answered Oct 15 '08 at 08:30

dogbane

266,786
75
396
414

score 1 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:07

1

There are some proposed meta tag keys representing Dublin Core values that may be used. See: https://stackoverflow.com/a/14893974/895245

edited May 23 '17 at 12:07

Community

1
1

answered Nov 17 '15 at 12:19

Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com

347,512
102
1,199
985

getting the last modified date of a html file

5 Answers5

Linked