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Changing time stamp of a file in linux

Most of us would have wanted to know how we can change the timestamp of a file, well it's done using a command that we would have used several times, but might have never thought of checking its manual.

I was surprised when I saw it for the first time, as I have been using this command for years, but never knew, what it was intended for.

We can change the timestamp of a file using touch command.

  • Lets create a file and check its timestamp.

    [root@suresh-kumar21 test]# touch noname
[root@suresh-kumar21 test]# stat noname 
File: ‘noname’
Size: 0             Blocks: 0          IO Block: 4096   regular empty file
Device: ca01h/51713d    Inode: 75539074    Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Context: unconfined_u:object_r:admin_home_t:s0
Access: 2017-01-02 05:36:53.666076255 +0000
Modify: 2017-01-02 05:36:53.666076255 +0000
Change: 2017-01-02 05:36:53.666076255 +0000
Birth: -
[root@suresh-kumar21 test]#

  • Now we would change the access time of the file, for this, we would use the following flags.

    Flag/Argument Description
    -a To change access time
    -t To provide time 
    [root@suresh-kumar21 test]# touch -a -t 201605050200 noname 
[root@suresh-kumar21 test]# stat noname
File: ‘noname’
Size: 0             Blocks: 0          IO Block: 4096   regular empty file
Device: ca01h/51713d    Inode: 75539074    Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Context: unconfined_u:object_r:admin_home_t:s0
Access: 2016-05-05 02:00:00.000000000 +0000
Modify: 2017-01-02 05:36:53.666076255 +0000
Change: 2017-01-02 05:39:23.425680365 +0000
Birth: -
[root@suresh-kumar21 test]#

  • Here, we can see that only access time has been changed.

  • Similarly, we can change the Modify time as well, but for this, we would have to execute the command without -a flag. 
    [root@suresh-kumar21 test]# touch -t 201605050200 noname 
[root@suresh-kumar21 test]# stat noname
File: ‘noname’
Size: 0             Blocks: 0          IO Block: 4096   regular empty file
Device: ca01h/51713d    Inode: 75539074    Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Context: unconfined_u:object_r:admin_home_t:s0
Access: 2016-05-05 02:00:00.000000000 +0000
Modify: 2016-05-05 02:00:00.000000000 +0000
Change: 2017-01-02 05:40:08.788043092 +0000
Birth: -
[root@suresh-kumar21 test]#
  • For more details, do refer to the man page for touch command. 
    man touch
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