TOUCH(1)                         User Commands                        TOUCH(1)

NAME
       touch - change file timestamps

SYNOPSIS
       touch [OPTION]... FILE...

DESCRIPTION
       Update the access and modification times of each FILE to the current
       time.

       A FILE argument that does not exist is created empty, unless -c or -h
       is supplied.

       A FILE argument string of - is handled specially and causes touch to
       change the times of the file associated with standard output.

       Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options
       too.

       -a     change only the access time

       -c, --no-create
              do not create any files

       -d, --date=STRING
              parse STRING and use it instead of current time

       -f     (ignored)

       -h, --no-dereference
              affect each symbolic link instead of any referenced file (useful
              only on systems that can change the timestamps of a symlink)

       -m     change only the modification time

       -r, --reference=FILE
              use this file's times instead of current time

       -t [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss]
              use specified time instead of current time, with a date-time
              format that differs from -d's

       --time=WORD
              specify which time to change: access time (-a): 'access',
              'atime', 'use'; modification time (-m): 'modify', 'mtime'

       --help display this help and exit

       --version
              output version information and exit

DATE STRING
       The --date=STRING is a mostly free format human readable date string
       such as "Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:21:42 -0800" or "2004-02-29 16:21:42" or
       even "next Thursday".  A date string may contain items indicating
       calendar date, time of day, time zone, day of week, relative time,
       relative date, and numbers.  An empty string indicates the beginning of
       the day.  The date string format is more complex than is easily
       documented here but is fully described in the info documentation.

AUTHOR
       Written by Paul Rubin, Arnold Robbins, Jim Kingdon, David MacKenzie,
       and Randy Smith.

REPORTING BUGS
       GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+: GNU
       GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
       This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
       There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO
       Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/touch>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) touch invocation'

GNU coreutils 9.5                 March 2024                          TOUCH(1)