Touch
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Touch, by default, changes the timestamp for an existing file to the current date and time or, if the file named does not exist, creates it in the current directory. For example:
$ ls -l foo -rw------- 1 user users 32 Mar 18 22:07 foo $ touch foo $ ls -l foo -rw------- 1 user users 32 Mar 21 12:28 foo
sets the timestamp to the current time.
As another example, if .hushlogin did not exist:
$ cd $ touch .hushlogin
creates a .hushlogin file in one's home directory, which suppresses the display of /etc/motd on login.
Among other options, a particular time may be specified with the -t option and file creation may be suppressed with the -c option.
Provided by
Most (all?) Linux distributions incorporate this from the GNU Coreutils: man page