touch - Change file access and modification times

touch [-acfm] [-r ref_file] [-t [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.SS] ] [-C ccsid] file ...

Description

The touch utility sets the modification and access times of files to the current time of day. If the file doesn't exist, it is created with default permissions.

Options

-a

Change the access time of file. The modification time of the file is not changed unless the -m flag is also specified.

-C ccsid

If file does not exist, create the file with the specified ccsid. This option overrides the value of the QIBM_CCSID environment variable.

-c

Do not create file if it does not exist. The touch utility does not treat this as an error. No error messages are displayed and the exit value is not affected.

-f

Attempt to force the update, even if the file permissions do not currently permit it.

-m

Change the modification time of file. The access time of the file is not changed unless the -a flag is also specified.

-r ref_file

Use the access and modifications times from the specified ref_file instead of the current time of day.

-t

Change the access and modification times to the specified time. The argument should be in the form:

[[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.SS]

where each pair of letters represents the following:

CC

The first two digits of the year (the century).

YY

The second two digits of the year. If YY is specified, but CC is not, a value for CC between 69 and 99 results in a YY value of 19. Otherwise, a CC value of 20 is used.

MM

The month of the year, from 1 to 12.

DD

The day of the month, from 1 to 31.

hh

The hour of the day, from 0 to 23.

mm

The minute of the hour, from 0 to 59.

SS

The second of the minute, from 0 to 59.

If the CC and YY letter pairs are not specified, the values default to the current year. If the SS letter pair is not specified, the value defaults to 0.

Environment Variables

touch is affected by the following environment variables:

QIBM_CCSID

If file does not exist, touch creates the file with the CCSID specified by the value of the environment variable.

Exit Status

• 0 on success
• >0 if an error occurs

1. Change the time-date stamp of the file myfile to match the time-date stamp of the file yourfile.

   touch -r yourfile myfile
   

2. Change the time-date stamp of the file myfile to a specific time-date stamp.

   touch -t 200001010000.00 myfile