touch(1)                                                 touch(1)



     NAME
          touch - update access and modification times of a file

     SYNOPSIS
          touch [-a] [-c] [-m] [mmddhhmm[yy]] files

     DESCRIPTION
          touch causes the access and modification times of each
          argument to be updated.  The file name is created if it does
          not exist.  If no time is specified (see date(1)) the
          current time is used.  The -a and -m flag options cause
          touch to update only the access or modification times
          respectively (default is -am).  The -c flag option silently
          prevents touch from creating the file if it did not
          previously exist.

          The return code from touch is the number of files for which
          the times could not be successfully modified (including
          files that did not exist and were not created).

          Note that you can't touch a numeric filename without
          preceding that filename with the date or with a non-numeric
          filename on the command line.  For example,

               touch 100

          will not work, however

               touch 0723093584 100

          or

               touch file1 100

          will work.

     EXAMPLE
               touch filea fileb

          sets the ``date last modified'' of the two files to the
          current date.

     FILES
          /bin/touch

     SEE ALSO
          date(1), utime(2).








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