touch
change file access and modification times
touch [-acfm] [-r referenceFile] [-t [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss]] file …
Sets the modification and access times of files
If the file doesn't exist, it is created .
Default now,
-c
--no-create Do not create the file if it does not exist and do not treat this as an error.
| --date=MMDDhhmm|
| -f | Attempt to force the update, even if the file permissions do not currently permit it.
| -r f Use the times of referenceFile
| -m | Change the modification time only
| -a | Change the access time only
| -t Change the access and modification times.
[[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss]
CC | century,first two digits of the year
| YY second two digits of the year. Default: current year
If CC is omitted, a value for YY between 69 and 99 results in
a CC value of 19.
Otherwise, a CC value of 20 is used.
| MM 1-12 DD 1-31
hh 0-23; mm 0-59; ss 0-61
defaults to 0.
| | |
| -h
--no-dereference affect symbolic link instead of any referenced file (Only on file systems where symlinks have a unique timestamps )
| | | | | | | | |
Time may be specified as the first argument. If YY is in the range 39 to 99,
CC is set to 19, otherwise, CC is set to 20
Notice that this is different from the start year with -t
status
0 on success
1 permission denied, unknown flag, invalid date format .
touch [-acfm] [[MMDDhhmm[YY]]
† file …
Alphabetic characters in the time cause the time to be treated as a file which will be created and file wil be updated with now!.
Illegal decimal values:
For example without -t | 1801022359
yymmddhhmm
| instead of the correct | 0102235918
MMDDhhmmyy
results in the unpredictable (by the author) 06/01/60 02:23:55
| | |
Don't omit YY other wise time may be set to the future (for example touch 12312359 futureFile.txt). ls -l futureFile.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 0 Dec 31 2021 futureFile.txt
Ommitting the - before the t will make a file named t unless -c
is specified in which case it woun't do anything and won't complain.
See utimes