Tech-Recipes - Latest Comments in Create/modify a UNIX file with an arbitrary timestamp

Re: Create/modify a UNIX file with an arbitrary timestamp

fracai — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 03:46:39 -0000

touch -B <#> will set the timestamp to a date in the past by the number of seconds provided

ie. touch -B 10 will make the file appear 10 seconds older than the current date.

man touch is more helpful than waiting a few months for an answer :)

Re: Create/modify a UNIX file with an arbitrary timestamp

Migxi — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 02:56:26 -0000

Excellent..... now.....

Who to stamp the timeref file with a date like 15 days ago ?

Re: Create/modify a UNIX file with an arbitrary timestamp

qmchenry — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 01:56:30 -0000

Good question. I've never noticed this behavior before. I don't see any options for touch that would make it not follow the link. If you really need the link to be updated by a touch and it is in the same filesystem as the real file, you could use a hard link. When you touch a hard link, it updates both the link and the original file. The hard link doesn't look like a symbolic link, it just looks like a regular file, which may not be desirable. That's the only suggestion that I have. Anyone else?

Quinn

Re: Create/modify a UNIX file with an arbitrary timestamp

gandalf — Mon, 26 Apr 2004 00:27:07 -0000

How do you handle symbolic links? The touch command affects the target of the symbolic link and not the link itself.