ospathgetmtimepath

os.path.getmtime is a function in the Python Standard Library that returns the last modification time of a filesystem path. It accepts a path-like object (such as a string, bytes, or an os.PathLike object) and returns a floating-point number representing the number of seconds since the Unix epoch (1970-01-01 UTC) at which the path was last modified.

How it works: getmtime uses the operating system's stat information for the path, effectively returning the value of os.stat(path).st_mtime. By default, this follows symbolic links, so the modification time reflects the target file or directory rather than the link itself. If you need the modification time of the link itself, you would need to consult the results of os.lstat or Path(path).lstat().

Return value and precision: The function yields the modification time as a float, which allows sub-second precision on platforms and Python versions that provide it. For higher precision, Python also exposes st_mtime_ns on stat_result objects, which can be used to obtain the time in nanoseconds.

Exceptions and edge cases: If the specified path does not exist, getmtime raises FileNotFoundError. Other I/O-related errors raise OSError. The function is affected by the same filesystem semantics as os.stat, including permissions and path correctness.

Related utilities: getmtime is closely related to os.path.getatime (for access time) and os.path.getctime (creation or status change time, depending on the platform). In modern Python code, pathlib.Path(path).stat().st_mtime or Path(path).stat().st_mtime_ns provide equivalent access with a more object-oriented interface.