touch(1)                                                 touch(1)



     NAME
          touch - update access and modification times of a file

     SYNOPSIS
          touch [-a] [-c] [-m] [mmddhhmm [yy]] file ...

     DESCRIPTION
          touch causes the access and modification times of each argu-
          ment 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 up-
          date only the access or modification times respectively (de-
          fault 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).

     EXAMPLES
               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).

     BUGS
          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.








     April, 1990                                                     1