The touch command on Linux

The touch command in Linux is used to create new files or change the last modification time of existing files.

Syntax

It has the following syntax:

touch [option] File_name

To create a new file named example.txt, enter the following command:

touch example.txt

If the file already exists, the touch command will change the last modification time to the current time.

Touch options

The options of the touch command allow you to customize its behavior. For example, the -a option changes only the time of the last access to the file, and the -m option changes only the time of the last modification to the file.

touch can also be used to create empty files in specified directories. For example, to create an empty file named example.txt in the /home/user/documents directory, enter the following command:

touch /home/user/documents/example.txt

In general, it is very useful when working with files and directories in Linux, as it allows you to create and modify files quickly and easily.

How is it installed?

It is part of the standard set of utilities in most Linux distributions and is usually already installed by default. If it is not installed, you can install it with the following command in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install coreutils

This will install the coreutils package, which contains many utilities, including touch. For other Linux distributions, you may need to use a different command to install the coreutils package.