Command: touch
The TOUCH program modifies the date and/or time of files on a disk.
Syntax:
touch [-?] [-C] [-Dpathname] [-F] [Date] [Time] Pathspec [...]
touch [/?] [/C] [/Dpathname] [/F] [Date] [Time] Pathspec [...]
Pathspec specifies a file or group of files to be touched, and
may contain an initial drive specification, a directory path
specification, and/or a file specification, and may specify a
group of files (using the '?' and '*' wildcard characters) or
a single file (an unambiguous specification). Pathspec may be
repeated as needed.
Options:
-C Don't create files that do not already exist.
-Dpathname Duplicate date and time from specified file. If this option
is used, date or time may not be specified.
-F Set time to file's version number.
-? Shows the help.
Date The new date on the files to be modified. If this option is
used, -Dpathname may not be specified.
Time The new time on the files to be modified. If this option is
used, -Dpathname may not be specified.
The date format is determined by your COUNTRY setting, see CONFIG.SYS
/ FDCONFIG.SYS.
The character '/' may be used as the date separator.
The A and P (a.m, p.m) suffixes on the time parameter are optional.
If neither date nor time are supplied, current date and time are used.
Non-existent files are created unless -C is given.
Comments:
TOUCH allows the date, time, or both date and time of the file to be
modified. TOUCH can set the date and time to the current date and
time, or to any date and time specified by the user. The date and time
can also be set to zero, which causes the values to be displayed as
blank in the directory listing under some versions of DOS.
A date must be formatted as:
nn-nn-nn or nn/nn/nn.
The order in which the date numbers are interpreted depends on the
country number. There are three standard date orders:
mm-dd-yy (American)
dd-mm-yy (European)
yy.mm.dd (Japanese)
A time parameter must be formatted as:
hh:mm[:ss][a|p]
The second colon and the 'ss' value are optional. If they are not given,
a seconds value of zero will be used. The 'a' and 'p' suffixes (a.m and
p.m) are optional, and if neither is used, TOUCH will assume that the
time is being specified in 24-hour format.
THE -C OPTION:
TOUCH will (by default) create files specified unambiguously (i.e.
named explicitly, without wildcards) if they don't already exist.
This is apparently the behaviour of the Unix 'touch', though it is
not usual in DOS implementations. This feature can be overridden
by the -C command line switch, which tells TOUCH not to create the
specified file if it does not already exist. I believe this is also
standard in Unix implementations.
For example, the command TOUCH NOSUCH.FIL (if NOSUCH.FIL does not
already exist), will create an empty (zero bytes long) file called
NOSUCH.FIL. The command TOUCH -C NOSUCH.FIL will report an error
and will not create the file.
TOUCH has the following EXITCODES (ERRORLEVEL):
0 Normal completion; no errors
2 One or more errors occurred during processing
48 Error during processing of -Dpathname option
162 Insufficient memory (approx. 64K of memory is required)
255 Incorrect usage syntax
Examples:
touch 12-31-2008 06:10p C:\FDOS\BIN\*.*
See also:
config.sys
country
fdconfig.sys
File:
Please read this command's lsm file also.
You will find the updated version (internet) here and
the version described in this manual page here.
The lsm file contains information about the name of the programmer,
the download site, and some other command related information.
Copyright © 2008 W. Spiegl.
This file is derived from the FreeDOS Spec Command HOWTO.
See the file H2Cpying for copying conditions.