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Name

touch - change file timestamps

Synopsis

touch [OPTION]... FILE...

Description

Update the access and modification times of each FILE to the current time.

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)

-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.

If a FILE is -, touch standard output.

Author

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

Reporting Bugs

Report bugs to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>.

Copyright

Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software. You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of the GNU General Public License <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. 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 touch

should give you access to the complete manual.

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