touch(1) - Linux man page

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 © 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.