What is the touch command in Linux?

The touch command comes as part of the GNU Core-utilities and creates a new file in Linux using the terminal.

The GNU Core-utilities package can be installed and run on any Unix-like operating system.

Arguments

The touch command is capable of performing multiple tasks. A different argument is loaded for each function. In this shot, we will go through the most frequently used arguments.

touch filename

We can use the touch command to create new files by giving file names as the input. Multiple file names may be input at once:

touch filename1 filename2

touch -a filename

The -a argument is used to change the access time of a file. The name of the file which we wish to modify is given as the second argument.

touch -c filename

The -c argument is used to check if a file with the given filename exists or not.

touch -c-d filename

The -c-d argument is used to change a given file’s access and modification times.

touch -m filename

The -m argument is used to alter only the modification time.

Note that filename(s) is mandatory for all types of arguments.

Example

In the example below, we create two files using the touch command. Subsequently, we use the -a, -c, and -m arguments to see if these files we created actually exist or not, and then modify their timestamps.

We use the ls -l command to observe how the details of the two files change.