Korn Shell Programming by Example

touch

Official Description

Updates file access and modification times.

Syntax

touch [-acfm] [-r reference_file | -t time] file...
				

Options

-a changes only the access time.

-m changes only the modification time.

-r reference_file causes the specified file's times to be used instead of the current time.

-t time specifies the time to use.

Oddities

It can be used to create an empty file.

Example

$ ls -l d*                   # Note date
-rw-rw-r--   1 obrien   obrien         22 Nov 27 00:32 do_funcy
$
$ date                       # Current date
Mon Nov 27 15:32:30 EST 2000
$
$ touch do_funcy             # Alter date on file
$
$ ls -l d*                   # Note date change
-rw-rw-r--   1 obrien   obrien         22 Nov 27 15:32 do_funcy
$
$ touch denfile              # Create empty file
$
$ ls -l d*                   # Note size
-rw-rw-r--   1 obrien   users           0 Nov 27 15:33 ...