Linux and UNIX Man Pages

Linux & Unix Commands - Search Man Pages

touch(1) [v7 man page]

TOUCH(1)						      General Commands Manual							  TOUCH(1)

NAME
touch - update date last modified of a file SYNOPSIS
touch [ -c ] file ... DESCRIPTION
Touch attempts to set the modified date of each file. This is done by reading a character from the file and writing it back. If a file does not exist, an attempt will be made to create it unless the -c option is specified. TOUCH(1)

Check Out this Related Man Page

TOUCH(1)							   User Commands							  TOUCH(1)

NAME
touch - change file timestamps SYNOPSIS
touch [OPTION]... FILE... DESCRIPTION
Update the access and modification times of each FILE to the current time. A FILE argument that does not exist is created empty, unless -c or -h is supplied. A FILE argument string of - is handled specially and causes touch to change the times of the file associated with standard output. Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too. -a change only the access time -c, --no-create do not create any files -d, --date=STRING parse STRING and use it instead of current time -f (ignored) -h, --no-dereference affect each symbolic link instead of any referenced file (useful only on systems that can change the timestamps of a symlink) -m change only the modification time -r, --reference=FILE use this file's times instead of current time -t STAMP use [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss] instead of current time --time=WORD change the specified time: WORD is access, atime, or use: equivalent to -a WORD is modify or mtime: equivalent to -m --help display this help and exit --version output version information and exit Note that the -d and -t options accept different time-date formats. GNU coreutils online help: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/> Report touch translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/> DATE STRING
The --date=STRING is a mostly free format human readable date string such as "Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:21:42 -0800" or "2004-02-29 16:21:42" or even "next Thursday". A date string may contain items indicating calendar date, time of day, time zone, day of week, relative time, rela- tive date, and numbers. An empty string indicates the beginning of the day. The date string format is more complex than is easily docu- mented here but is fully described in the info documentation. AUTHOR
Written by Paul Rubin, Arnold Robbins, Jim Kingdon, David MacKenzie, and Randy Smith. COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. SEE ALSO
The full documentation for touch is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and touch programs are properly installed at your site, the command info coreutils 'touch invocation' should give you access to the complete manual. GNU coreutils 8.22 June 2014 TOUCH(1)
Man Page