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007-the-touch-command.md

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The touch Command

The touch command modifies a file's timestamps. If the file specified doesn't exist, an empty file with that name is created.

Syntax

touch [OPTION]... FILE...

Options

Short Flag Long Flag Description
-a - Change only the access time.
-c --no-create Do not create any files.
-d STRING --date=STRING Parse STRING and use it instead of the current time.
-f - (Ignored) This option does nothing but is accepted to provide compatibility with BSD versions of the touch command.
-h --no-dereference Affect each symbolic link instead of any referenced file (useful only on systems that can change the timestamps of a symlink). This option implies -c, nothing is created if the file does not exist.
-m - Change only the modification time.
-r=FILE --reference=FILE Use this file's times instead of the current time.
-t STAMP - Use the numeric time STAMP instead of the current time. The format of STAMP is [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss].
- --time=WORD An alternate way to specify which type of time is set (e.g. access, modification, or change). This is equivalent to specifying -a or -m.
  • WORD is access, atime, or use: equivalent to -a.
  • WORD is modify or mtime: equivalent to -m.

An alternate way to specify what type of time to set (as with -a and -m).| |

-|--help|Display a help message, and exit.| |-|--version|Display version information, and exit.|

Examples

  1. If file.txt exists, set all of its timestamps to the current system time. If file.txt doesn't exist, create an empty file with that name.
touch file.txt
  1. If file.txt exists, set its times to the current system time. If it does not exist, do nothing.
touch -c file.txt
  1. Change the access time of file.txt. The modification time is not changed. The change time is set to the current system time. If file.txt does not exist, it is created.
touch -a file.txt
  1. Change the times of file symboliclink. If it's a symbolic link, change the times of the symlink, NOT the times of the referenced file.
touch -h symboliclink
  1. Change the access and modification times of file-b.txt to match the times of file-a.txt. The change time will be set to the current system time. If file-b.txt does not exist, it is not created. Note, file-a.txt must already exist in this context.
touch -cr file-a.txt file-b.txt
  1. Set the access time and modification time of file.txt to February 1st of the current year. The change time is set to the current system time.
touch -d "1 Feb" file.txt