touch

NAME

       touch - change file timestamps

SYNOPSIS

       touch     [-acfm]    [-r    reference-file]    [-t    MMD-
       Dhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]]               [-d                time]
       [--time={atime,access,use,mtime,modify}]     [--date=time]
       [--file=reference-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  per-
       mission 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 cur-
              rent 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 successfully.