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 STAMP
              use [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss] instead of current time

       --time=WORD
              change the specified time: WORD is access, atime, or use: equiv‐
              alent 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.

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 cal‐
       endar date, time of day, time zone, day of week, relative  time,  rela‐
       tive 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
       Report touch bugs to bug-coreutils@gnu.org
       GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
       Report touch translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright © 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.   License  GPLv3+:  GNU
       GPL version 3 or later <http://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
       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 coreutils 'touch invocation'

       should give you access to the complete manual.



GNU coreutils 8.5                February 2011                        TOUCH(1)