man/man1/touch.1

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 Copyright 1989 AT&T
 Copyright (c) 1992, X/Open Company Limited All Rights Reserved
 Portions Copyright (c) 2009, Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved

 TOUCH 1 "June 13, 2021"
 NAME
touch, settime - change file access and modification times
 SYNOPSIS
touch [-acm] [-r ref_file | -t time | -d date_time] file...


touch [-acm] [time_spec] file...


settime [-f ref_file] [time_spec] file...


 DESCRIPTION
The touch utility sets the access and modification times of each file.
The file operand is created if it does not already exist.

The time used can be specified by -t time, by -d
date_time, by the corresponding time fields of the file referenced by
-r ref_file, or by the time_spec operand. If none of these
are specified, touch uses the current time.

If neither the -a nor -m options are specified, touch updates
both the modification and access times.

A user with write access to a file, but who is not the owner of the file or a
super-user, can change the modification and access times of that file only to
the current time. Attempts to set a specific time with touch results in
an error.

The settime utility is equivalent to touch -c
[time_spec] file.
 OPTIONS
The following options are supported in the touch and settime
utilities:
 "touch"
The following options are supported for the touch utility:
-a

Changes the access time of file. Does not change the modification time
unless -m is also specified.


-c

Does not create a specified file if it does not exist. Does not write any
diagnostic messages concerning this condition.


-d date_time

Uses the specified date_time instead of the current time. The option-argument
must be a string of the form:
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:SS[.frac][tz]


or
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:SS[,frac][tz]


where


YYYY is at least four decimal digits giving the year


MM, DD, hh, mm, and SS are as with -t
time


T is either the letter T or a single SPACE character


[.frac] and [,frac] are either empty, or a period (.) or
a comma (,) respectively, followed by one or more decimal digits,
specifying a fractional second


[tz] is either empty, signifying local time, or the letter Z,
signifying UTC. If [tz] is empty, the resulting time is affected by the
value of the TZ environment variable


-m

Changes the modification time of file. Does not change the access time
unless -a is also specified.


-r ref_file

Uses the corresponding times of the file named by ref_file instead of the
current time.


-t time

Uses the specified time instead of the current time. time is a
decimal number of the form:
[[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.SS]


where each two digits represent the following:
MM

The month of the year [01-12].


DD

The day of the month [01-31].


hh

The hour of the day [00-23].


mm

The minute of the hour [00-59].


CC

The first two digits of the year.


YY

The second two digits of the year.


SS

The second of the minute [00-61].


Both CC and YY are optional. If neither is given, the current year
is assumed. If YY is specified, but CC is not, CC is derived
as follows:


If YY is: CC becomes:
69-99 19
00-38 20
39-68 ERROR


The resulting time is affected by the value of the TZ environment
variable. If the resulting time value precedes the Epoch, touch exits
immediately with an error status. The range of valid times is the Epoch to
January 18, 2038.
The range for SS is [00-61] rather than [00-59] because of leap seconds.
If SS is 60 or 61, and the resulting time, as affected by the TZ
environment variable, does not refer to a leap second, the resulting time is
one or two seconds after a time where SS is 59. If SS is not given,
it is assumed to be 0.


 "settime"
The following option is supported for the settime utility:
-f ref_file

Uses the corresponding times of the file named by ref_file instead of the
current time.


 OPERANDS
The following operands are supported for the touch and settime
utilities:
file

A path name of a file whose times are to be modified.


time_spec

Uses the specified time_spec instead of the current time. This operand is
a decimal number of the form:
MMDDhhmm[YY]


where each two digits represent the following:
MM

The month of the year [01-12].


DD

The day of the month [01-31].


hh

The hour of the day [00-23].


mm

The minute of the hour [00-59].


YY

The second two digits of the year.
YY is optional. If it is omitted, the current year is assumed. If
YY is specified, the year is derived as follows:


YY Corresponding Year
69-99 1969-1999
00-38 2000-2038
39-68 ERROR


If no -d, -r, or -t option is specified, at least two operands
are specified, and the first operand is an eight- or ten-digit decimal integer,
the first operand is assumed to be a time_spec operand. Otherwise, the
first operand is assumed to be a file operand.


 USAGE
See largefile(7) for the description of the behavior of touch when
encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2^31 bytes).
 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See environ(7) for descriptions of the following environment variables
that affect the execution of touch: LANG, LC_ALL, LANG,
LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.
TZ

Determine the timezone to be used for interpreting the time or
date_time option-argument or the time_spec operand.


 EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0

The touch utility executed successfully and all requested changes were
made.


>0

An error occurred. The touch utility returned the number of files for
which the times could not be successfully modified.


 ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:


ATTRIBUTE TYPE ATTRIBUTE VALUE
CSI Enabled
Interface Stability Committed
Standard See standards(7).


 SEE ALSO
 futimens (2),  stat (2),  attributes (7),  environ (7),  largefile (7),  standards (7)  NOTES
Users familiar with the BSD environment find that for the touch utility,
the -f option is accepted but ignored. The -f option is unnecessary
because touch succeeds for all files owned by the user regardless of the
permissions on the files.