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 STAMP
	      use [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss] instead of current time

       --time=WORD
	      change the specified time: WORD is access, atime, or use: equiv-
	      alent to -a WORD is modify or mtime: equivalent to -m

       --help display this help and exit

       --version
	      output version information and exit

       Note that the -d and -t options accept different time-date formats.

       GNU  coreutils  online  help:  <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       Report touch translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>

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  cal-
       endar  date,  time of day, time zone, day of week, relative time, rela-
       tive 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.

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright  (C) 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+: GNU
       GPL version 3 or later <http://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
       The full documentation for touch is maintained as a Texinfo manual.  If
       the info and touch programs are properly installed at  your  site,  the
       command

	      info coreutils 'touch invocation'

       should give you access to the complete manual.



GNU coreutils 8.22		 February 2016			      TOUCH(1)