TOUCH(C)                                   UNIX System V



     Name
          touch - updates access and modification times of a file


     Syntax
          touch [ -amc ] [ mmddhhmm[yy] ] files


     Description
          touch causes the  access  and  modification  times  of  each
          argument  to  be  updated.   If  no  time  is specified (see
          date(C)) the current time is used.  If a new file is created
          using touch, the modification and access times can be set to
          any time.  However, the creation time is  automatically  set
          to  the  current time at the time of creation, and cannot be
          changed. The first mm refers to the month, dd refers to  the
          day,  hh  refers  to  the  hour, the second mm refers to the
          minute, and yy refers to the year.  The -a  and  -m  options
          cause  touch to update only the access or modification times
          respectively (default  is  -am).   The  -c  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).


     See Also
          date(C), utime(S)


     Standards Conformance
          touch is conformant with:

          AT&T SVID Issue 2, Select Code 307-127;
          and The X/Open Portability Guide II of January 1987.


     (printed 8/24/89)                                  TOUCH(C)