touch(1)

1TOUCH(1)                         User Commands                        TOUCH(1)
2
3
4

NAME

6       touch - change file timestamps
7

SYNOPSIS

9       touch [OPTION]... FILE...
10

DESCRIPTION

12       Update  the  access  and modification times of each FILE to the current
13       time.
14
15       A FILE argument that does not exist is created empty, unless -c  or  -h
16       is supplied.
17
18       A  FILE  argument  string of - is handled specially and causes touch to
19       change the times of the file associated with standard output.
20
21       Mandatory arguments to long options are  mandatory  for  short  options
22       too.
23
24       -a     change only the access time
25
26       -c, --no-create
27              do not create any files
28
29       -d, --date=STRING
30              parse STRING and use it instead of current time
31
32       -f     (ignored)
33
34       -h, --no-dereference
35              affect each symbolic link instead of any referenced file (useful
36              only on systems that can change the timestamps of a symlink)
37
38       -m     change only the modification time
39
40       -r, --reference=FILE
41              use this file's times instead of current time
42
43       -t STAMP
44              use [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss] instead of current time
45
46       --time=WORD
47              change the specified time: WORD is access, atime, or use: equiv‐
48              alent to -a WORD is modify or mtime: equivalent to -m
49
50       --help display this help and exit
51
52       --version
53              output version information and exit
54
55       Note that the -d and -t options accept different time-date formats.
56

DATE STRING

58       The  --date=STRING  is  a mostly free format human readable date string
59       such as "Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:21:42 -0800" or "2004-02-29  16:21:42"  or
60       even  "next Thursday".  A date string may contain items indicating cal‐
61       endar date, time of day, time zone, day of week, relative  time,  rela‐
62       tive date, and numbers.  An empty string indicates the beginning of the
63       day.  The date string format is more complex than is easily  documented
64       here but is fully described in the info documentation.
65

AUTHOR

67       Written  by  Paul  Rubin, Arnold Robbins, Jim Kingdon, David MacKenzie,
68       and Randy Smith.
69

REPORTING BUGS

71       Report touch bugs to bug-coreutils@gnu.org
72       GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
73       General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
74       Report touch translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>
75

COPYRIGHT

77       Copyright © 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.   License  GPLv3+:  GNU
78       GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
79       This  is  free  software:  you  are free to change and redistribute it.
80       There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
81