{"id":33,"date":"2007-11-01T23:28:56","date_gmt":"2007-11-01T15:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sysadmindayph.com\/blog\/unix-quick-tip-changing-the-time-stamp-of-a-file\/"},"modified":"2007-11-01T23:28:56","modified_gmt":"2007-11-01T15:28:56","slug":"unix-quick-tip-changing-the-time-stamp-of-a-file","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sysadmindayph.com\/blog\/unix-quick-tip-changing-the-time-stamp-of-a-file\/","title":{"rendered":"UNIX Quick Tip: Changing The Time Stamp Of A File"},"content":{"rendered":"

This tip is a give away. Everyone knows this, but for those who doesn’t or forgot…\u00a0 here’s refresher…<\/p>\n

Here’s a typical output of a file listing using `ls -l` on a directory:<\/p>\n

[root@unix-box icons]# ls -l | more
\ntotal 636
\n-rw-r–r–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1 elizar root\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 246 Aug 26\u00a0 2005 a.gif
\n-rw-r–r–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1 elizar root\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 242 Aug 26\u00a0 2005 alert.black.gif
\n-rw-r–r–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1 elizar root\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 279 Aug 26\u00a0 2005 alert.black.png
\n-rw-r–r–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1 elizar root\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 247 Aug 26\u00a0 2005 alert.red.gif
\n-rw-r–r–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1 elizar root\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 298 Aug 26\u00a0 2005 alert.red.png
\n-rw-r–r–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1 elizar root\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 2326 Aug 26\u00a0 2005 apache_pb.gif
\n-rw-r–r–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1 elizar root\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1385 Aug 26\u00a0 2005 apache_pb.png
\n-rw-r–r–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1 elizar root\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 293 Aug 26\u00a0 2005 a.png<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When using the -l (dash ‘el’) option of ls, the output will display a more detailed listing of the files. Here you’ll see the file properties\/permission (-rw-r–r–) the number of links, the owner of the file, the group of the user, file size, the date\/time stamp and finally the file name. That’s 7 column.<\/p>\n

Changing The Time Stamp Of A File<\/strong><\/p>\n

To change the time stamp of a file (the 6th column in the `ls -l` listing), we use the UNIX command touch<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

From the Man Pag:<\/p>\n

NAME
\ntouch – change file timestamps<\/p>\n

SYNOPSIS
\ntouch [OPTION]… FILE…
\ntouch [-acm] MMDDhhmm[YY] FILE… (obsolescent)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are many options for the touch <\/em>command, but the one I use fairly often is the -t option<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 -t STAMP; \u00a0\u00a0 use [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Example:<\/p>\n

\u00a0[root@unix-box icons]#\u00a0 touch -t 200607161201 a.gif
\n[root@unix-box icons]# ls -l | more
\ntotal 636
\n-rw-r–r–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1 elizar root\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 246 Jul 16\u00a0 2006 a.gif
\n-rw-r–r–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1 elizar root\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 242 Aug 26\u00a0 2005 alert.black.gif<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Other options that you\u00a0 may find useful are -a (change access time only) -m (modification time only) and others. Consult the man page for more details<\/p>\n

Cheers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This tip is a give away. Everyone knows this, but for those who doesn’t or forgot…\u00a0 here’s refresher… Here’s a typical output of a file listing using `ls -l` on a directory: [root@unix-box icons]# ls …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux","category-tips","category-unix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sysadmindayph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sysadmindayph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sysadmindayph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sysadmindayph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sysadmindayph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.sysadmindayph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sysadmindayph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sysadmindayph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sysadmindayph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}