touch is a command line utility to change file timestamps.
Questions tagged [touch]
131 questions
84
votes
15 answers
What are the legitimate uses of the `touch` command?
What's the point of the touch command? I know I can create empty files with it, but so is also the case with echo -n.
Otherwise, why would someone need to change the timestamps of a file? Unless to create the false impression about the age of a…
Quora Feans
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69
votes
1 answer
How to create a file and parent directories in one command?
Is there a flag/option for touch, mkdir, >, or some other command that will allow me to create a file and any non-existent parent directories at the same time?
For instance, let's say I'm in an empty folder. Now I can create parent directories if…
Jeff Puckett
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55
votes
11 answers
Use of touch and vi?
Is there a benefit of creating a file with touch prior to edit.. like:
touch foo
vi foo
versus getting it to editor straight-away? Like:
vi foo
I see quite a few tutorials using the former (touch then vi).
Fawix
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38
votes
4 answers
touch: cannot touch file: No such file or directory
I am getting the error:
touch: cannot touch `/opt/tsrm/compliance/cme/log/20121207.log`: No such file or directory
on the touch command: touch $LOGFILE
I also checked the link: touch: cannot touch `foo': No such file or directory, But I didn't…
Swagatika
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34
votes
4 answers
When creating an empty file, why might one prefer 'touch file' over ': >> file'?
Never realized that you could do this until just now:
: >> file
It seems to be functionally similar to:
touch file
Is there a reason why most resources seem to prefer touch over this shell builtin?
Harold Fischer
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29
votes
4 answers
touch: cannot touch `foo': No such file or directory
What could cause touch to fail with this error message?
touch: cannot touch `foo': No such file or directory
Note that an error due to incorrect permissions looks different:
touch: cannot touch `foo': Permission denied
Lorin Hochstein
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24
votes
1 answer
What happens if we use touch command while the file already exists
I already have a file named param.txt with some data on it. If I run
touch param.txt in the same folder will my data get lost?
Rajesh
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24
votes
4 answers
What is the use of the -f option for `touch`?
From man touch:
-f (ignored)
But I don't get what is meant by ignored.
I've tried following:
$ ls -l file
-rw-rw-r-- 1 pandya pandya 0 Mar 20 16:17 file
$ touch -f file
$ ls -l file
-rw-rw-r-- 1 pandya pandya 0 Mar 20 16:18 file
And noticed…
Pandya
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23
votes
2 answers
How to set file permissions with touch command
It seems that whenever I create a file with touch the permissions are set to: -rw-r--r--.
Is there some way that I can configure the permissions with touch or does this have to be done after with a different command?
chackerian
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votes
10 answers
How do I change folder timestamps recursively to the newest file?
I was wondering if anyone knows how to change the timestamps of folders recursively based on the latest timestamp found of the files in that folder.
So for example:
jon@UbuntuPanther:/media/media/MP3s/Foo Fighters/(1997-05-20) The Colour and The…
MonkeyWrench32
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19
votes
6 answers
touch all folders in a directory
I am trying to update the timestamps of all folders in the cwd using this:
for file in `ls`; do touch $file; done
But it doesn't seem to work. Any ideas why?
javamonkey79
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17
votes
3 answers
How do I set a file's mtime in epoch format?
I know how to get a file's mtime in epoch format:
stat --format=%Y
But I have not been able to figure out how to set a file's mtime in epoch format. The touch(1) man page appears to only accept a "timestamp" value (more-or-less fixed format…
eil
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votes
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Why does touch create new files?
I am aware that the touch command is used to update the date of last modification on a file. It is also used to create a new file if requested file does not exist on file system.
Since touch (as it's name implies), should just update last mod date,…
Alex McCourt
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4 answers
touch: cannot touch ‘test’: Permission denied
I am trying to create a file in a directory but I am getting:
`touch`: cannot touch ‘test’: Permission denied
Here are my commands:
[user@xxx api]$ ls -l
total 184
...
drwxrwxr-x 2 root root 4096 2016-04-12 14:38 public
..
[user@xxx api]$ cd…
Edgaras Karka
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2 answers
What does 'touch' stand for?
My question is not so much a question of computer science as it is a question of etymology.
The command touch changes file access and modification times.
What does 'touch' stand for?
Remi.b
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