UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

If touch command sets the modification and access times of files to the current time of day, is there a command that could do the reverse of this? Say change the access times of files to an earlier time or date?

Say I have this file:

HOME> ls -l
-rw-rw-r-- 1 orbix orbix 886 May 25 2007 temp1.sh
-rw-rw-r-- 1 orbix orbix 886 Nov 28 04:45 temp2.sh

change to:

HOME> ls -l
-rw-rw-r-- 1 orbix orbix 886 Jan 17 2005 temp1.sh
-rw-rw-r-- 1 orbix orbix 886 Jun 13 16:28 temp2.sh

many versions of touch support the -t option whcih allows you to set the date to any date you like instead of just the current date.

Code:

 -t time
      Uses the specified time instead of the current time.

      The time argument is a decimal number in the following form:

      [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.SS]

Another way is to use the -r option.