TOUCH(1L)TOUCH(1L)NAME
touch - change file timestamps
SYNOPSIS
touch [-acfm] [-r reference-file] [-t MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]] [-d time]
[--time={atime,access,use,mtime,modify}] [--date=time] [--file=refer‐
ence-file] [--no-create] [--help] [--version] file...
DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents the GNU version of touch. touch changes the
access and modification times of each given file to the current time.
Files that do not exist are created empty. If the first file name
given would be a valid argument to the -t option and no timestamp is
given with any of the -d, -r, or -t options and the -- argument is not
given, that argument is interpreted as the time for the other files
instead of as a filename.
If changing both the access and modification times to the current time,
touch can change the timestamps for files that the user running it does
not own but has write permission for. Otherwise, the user must own the
files.
OPTIONS
-a, --time=atime, --time=access, --time=use
Change the access time only.
-c, --no-create
Do not create files that do not exist.
-d, --date time
Use time (which can be in various common formats) instead of the
current time. It can contain month names, timezones, `am' and
`pm', etc.
-f Ignored; for compatibility with BSD versions of touch.
-m, --time=mtime, --time=modify
Change the modification time only.
-r, --file reference-file
Use the times of reference-file instead of the current time.
-t MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]
Use the argument (months, days, hours, minutes, optional century
and years, optional seconds) instead of the current time.
--help Print a usage message on standard output and exit successfully.
--version
Print version information on standard output then exit success‐
fully.
FSF GNU File Utilities TOUCH(1L)