man--touch

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  sys-
              tems 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: 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.

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 begin-
       ning 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 [email protected]
       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 WAR-
       RANTY, 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 8.4                November 2013                        TOUCH(1)
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