touch(1) User Commands touch(1)
NAME
touch - change file timestamps
SYNOPSIS
touch [OPTION]... FILE...
DESCRIPTION
Update the access and modification times of each FILE to the current
time.
A FILE argument that does not exist is created empty, unless -c or -h
is supplied.
A FILE argument string of - is handled specially and causes touch to
change the times of the file associated with standard output.
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)
-h, --no-dereference
affect each symbolic link instead of any referenced file (useful
only on systems that can change the timestamps of a symlink)
-m change only the modification time
-r, --reference=FILE
use this file's times instead of current time
-t [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss]
use specified time instead of current time, with a date-time
format that differs from -d's
--time=WORD
specify which time to change: access time (-a): 'access',
'atime', 'use'; modification time (-m): 'modify', 'mtime'
--help display this help and exit
--version
output version information and exit
DATE STRING
The --date=STRING is a mostly free format human readable date string
such as "Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:21:42 -0800" or "2004-02-29 16:21:42" or
even "next Thursday". A date string may contain items indicating
calendar date, time of day, time zone, day of week, relative time,
relative date, and numbers. An empty string indicates the beginning of
the day. The date string format is more complex than is easily
documented here but is fully described in the info documentation.
AUTHOR
Written by Paul Rubin, Arnold Robbins, Jim Kingdon, David MacKenzie,
and Randy Smith.
REPORTING BUGS
GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU
GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
SEE ALSO
Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/touch>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) touch invocation'
GNU coreutils 9.5 March 2024 touch(1)
coreutils 9.5 - Generated Thu Apr 18 16:39:02 CDT 2024