NAME

touch − update access and modification times of a file

SYNTAX

touch [ −amcf ] [ mmddhhmm[yy] ] files

DESCRIPTION

The touch command causes the access and modification times of each argument to be updated. The file name is created if it does not already exist. If no time is specified, the current time is used. For a more detailed explanation of how to specify the date and time, see date(.).

The return code from touch is the number of files for which the times could not be successfully modified, including files that did not exist and were not created. This utility runs under the SYSTEM_FIVE environment.

OPTIONS

−a Causes touch to update the access time.

−c Prevents touch from creating the file if it did not previously exist.

−f Attempts to force the touch in spite of read and write restrictions on a file. 

−m Causes touch to update the modification time.

Note that the default setting for the touch command is −am. 

RESTRICTIONS

The −m flag used by itself will not work on files which are accessed over NFS. 

SEE ALSO

date(1), utime(2)

Commands