touch Command in Linux with Examples

The touch command in Linux is a standard Unix program primarily used to modify a file’s access and modification timestamps. Additionally, it can create a new empty file if the specified file does not exist.

Syntax:

The syntax for the touch command in Linux is:

touch [OPTION]... FILE...

• touch: The command itself.
• [Option]: Optional flags that modify the behavior of the touch command.
• File: One or more file names or paths that you want to modify or create.

OPTIONS:

• -a: Change the access time of file. Do not change the modification time unless -m is also specified.
• -c: Do not create a specified file if it does not exist. Do not write any diagnostic messages concerning this condition.
• -m: Change the modification time of file. Do not change the access time unless -a is also specified.
• -r: ref_file Use the corresponding times of the file named by ref_file instead of the current time.
• -f: ref_file Use the corresponding times of the file named by ref_file instead of the current time.
• file: A path name of a file whose times are to be modified.
• -t: time Use the specified time instead of the current time. time will be a decimal number of the form:

  [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm [.SS]

  • MM – The month of the year [01-12].
  • DD – The day of the month [01-31].
  • hh – The hour of the day [00-23].
  • mm – The minute of the hour [00-59].
  • CC – The first two digits of the year.
  • YY – The second two digits of the year.
  • SS – The second of the minute [00-61].

touch Command Examples:

1. The following touch command creates an empty (zero byte) new file called abc.

$ touch abc

2. By using touch command, you can also create more than one single file. For example the following command will create 3 files named, abc,def,ghi.

$ touch abc def ghi

3. To change or update the last access and modification times of a file called abc, use the -a option as follows. The following command sets the current time and date on a file. If the abc file does not exist, it will create the new empty file with the name.

$ touch -a abc

4. Using -c option with touch command avoids creating new files. For example the following command will not create a file called abc if it does not exists.

$ touch -c abc

5. If you like to change the only modification time of a file called abc, then use the -m option with touch command.

$ touch -m abc

6. You can explicitly set the time using -c and -t option with touch command. The following command sets the access and modification date and time to a file abc as 17:30 (17:30 p.m.) December 10 of the current year (2012).

$ touch -c -t 12101730 abc

7. The following touch command with -r option, will update the time-stamp of file abc with the time-stamp of def file. So, both the file holds the same time stamp.

$ touch -r abc def

8. If you would like to create a file with specified time other than the current time, then the below command touch command with -t option will gives the abc file a time stamp of 18:30:55 p.m. on December 10, 2012.

$ touch -t 201212101830.55 abc

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