Manual page for TOUCH(1V)
touch - update the access and modification times of a file
SYNOPSIS
touch
[
-c
] [
-f
]
filename...
SYSTEM V SYNOPSIS
/usr/5bin/touch
[
-acm
] [
date-time
]
filename...
AVAILABILITY
The System V version of this command is available with the
System V
software installation option. Refer to
[a manual with the abbreviation INSTALL]
for information on how to install optional software.
DESCRIPTION
touch
sets the access and modification times of each
argument to the current time.
A file is created if it does not already exist.
touch
is valuable when used in conjunction with
make.1
where, for instance, you might want to force a complete rebuild of a
program composed of many pieces. In such a case, you might type:
-
example% touch *.c
example% make
make.1
would then see that all the
.c
files were more
recent than the corresponding
.o
files, and would start
the compilation from scratch.
OPTIONS
- -c
-
Do not create
filename
if it does not exist.
- -f
-
Attempt to force the touch in spite of read and write permissions on
filename.
SYSTEM V OPTIONS
Options must be grouped to form the first argument. The
date-time
argument takes the form:
mmddhhmm[yy]
and updates the modification time to that specified, rather than the
current time.
The first
mm
is the month,
dd
is the day of the month,
hh
is the hour, and the second
mm
is the minute. If
yy
is specified, it is the last two digits
of the year. If omitted, the current year is assumed.
- -a
-
Update only the access time.
- -c
-
Do not create
filename
if it does not exist.
- -m
-
Update only the modification time.
SEE ALSO
make.1
utimes.2
BUGS
It is difficult to touch a file whose name
consists entirely of digits in
the System V
touch,
as it will interpret the first such non-flag
argument as a time. You must
ensure that there is a character in the
name which is not a digit, by
specifying it as
./name
rather than
name.
Created by unroff & hp-tools.
© somebody (See intro for details). All Rights Reserved.
Last modified 11/5/97
