bam file: get date that alignment was run

Question

[brismiller]

Hey all,

This is kind of random, but it there date information in bam files for when the alignment was run, or when the file was created? Maybe in the header?

Cheers!

[Carlo Yague]

I'm not aware of date information directly stored in the bam file, but your operating system should record the date of the last change you did to the file. This can be equivalent to the .bam creation date if the file has not been modified afterwards. To view this, use CTR + i or CMD + i on the bam file or type ls -lh my_bam in terminal.

[Nicolas Rosewick]

check the header with samtools : samtools view -H align.bam