[texhax] How to insert file content into a string?

[Martin Schröder]

2006/11/5, Micha Hofri <hofri at wpi.edu>:
> I understood correctly, the time option of prelim2e gives the compilation
> time, when latex does the processing; but this is not quite right,
> especially if I typeset a book containing pieces that were last changed
> at different times, and this information is significant for our use.

pdfTeX 1.30 has \pdffilemoddate{<file>}, which expands to the
modification date of <file> in the same format as \pdfcreationdate
(PDF date format).

> On the other hand, every versioning system will be too much overhead for
> a team of two authors. We would like to stay away from these.

Then you must use \pdffilemoddate or trickery with \write18. Or the
pipe feature of pdfTeX 1.40 .

Best
   Martin