Yesterday, I stumbled upon this little command called “touch” and thought, “What’s the big deal?” I mean, it sounds so… basic. But boy, was I wrong! It turned out to be more useful than I initially gave it credit for. So, here’s my little journey of messing around with “touch”.
My ‘touch’ Adventure Begins
First things first, I wanted to see this thing in action. So, I opened up my terminal – you know, that black window that makes you feel like a hacker in a movie. I typed in touch * and hit Enter. Boom! Like magic, a new file appeared in my directory. It was empty, sure, but it was there. I felt a weird sense of accomplishment for creating… nothingness.
Getting a Bit More Creative
Then I thought, “Can I create multiple files at once?” Turns out, yeah, you totally can! I went touch * * *. And just like that, three new files popped up. It was like I was some kind of digital file-creating wizard.
Playing with Timestamps
This is where things got a bit more interesting. I learned that “touch” can also update the timestamp of an existing file. So, I had this old file, , sitting there. I typed touch *, and checked the timestamp with ls -l. And voila! The file’s “last modified” time was updated to the current time. It was like giving the file a little “Hey, I’m still relevant!” nudge.
The ‘-t’ Option: Time Traveler!
But wait, there’s more! I found out about the -t option. This thing lets you set a specific timestamp. Like, you can literally tell the file, “You were last modified on this date, at this time.” It’s kinda like time travel for files. I tried touch -t 202312250000 * (that’s for Christmas, midnight, last year). And guess what? The file’s timestamp jumped back to Christmas! Crazy, right?
The -r:copy timestamp form other file
Also you can copy timestamp to target file.
It’s simple and a little bit confused if you don’t familiar with touch before, all you need to do is use touch -r * *, and then the * ‘s timestamp will as same as the *, that is a little bit fun, isn’t it?
Wrapping Up My ‘touch’ Escapade
So, that was my little adventure with the “touch” command. It went from “Huh, that’s neat” to “Whoa, this is actually pretty cool!” It’s a simple tool, no doubt, but it’s got its uses. Whether you’re creating empty files, updating timestamps, or pretending to be a file time traveler, “touch” has got you covered. I use these when I need to create empty placeholder files for testing or to trigger some file-watching * it a try, you might be surprised at how handy this little command can be!
