Creating File Handles

This seems to me, to be the most basic question I've ever encountered, and YET I have been having trouble searching BOTH msdn and google to find it..what a bother, and even a search on cboard didn't show what I wanted...couldn't believe it, figured it might be my search terms, but I'm on a limited time frame and don't want to go through that. My brother has to get on the comp, so I have to ask it and get results quickly. I'm sure all three of these sources have information, I just don't have the time to build up search terms for them.

My question is, how do I create a file handle?

My usage is, to have my application run, and modify the applications creation/access/last write times using

Code:

---

SetFileTime(
  HANDLE hFile,
  const FILETIME* lpCreationTime,
  const FILETIME* lpLastAccessTime,
  const FILETIME* lpLastWriteTime
);

---

But, obviously, I need a handle to the application for this to work. I have every other argument i need, it's just the first one that's crucial to the success of this project.

I don't want an alternative mind you, I really want to stick to winapi functions, infact there's no other implementation that I would accept since I'm learning about winapi at this point in time.

Well you could use createfile

Code:

---

HANDLE CreateFile(
  LPCTSTR lpFileName,                        // file name
  DWORD dwDesiredAccess,                      // access mode
  DWORD dwShareMode,                          // share mode
  LPSECURITY_ATTRIBUTES lpSecurityAttributes, // SD
  DWORD dwCreationDisposition,                // how to create
  DWORD dwFlagsAndAttributes,                // file attributes
  HANDLE hTemplateFile                        // handle to template file
);

---

I can't use CreateFile, since the exe that I want to change the attributes of, IS the exe that's running. and I don't want to create a copy of the application I'm running.

Now, that is assuming that I can modify the time attributes while It's running. If it doesn't let me do that, I still want to modify the time attributes of another exe without having to create the file or copy a file. That's just a bother if you ask me.

CreateFile doesn't copy a file. It opens an existing file, or a new file - read it up in MSDN. It's a very versatile function, possibly a little OTT :)

Thank you, I'll check that out :) Didn't know about the opening.