.TH CHDATE 1 .CT 1 files dirs .SH NAME touch, chdate \- set modification or access date of a file .SH SYNOPSIS .B touch [ .B -c ] .I file ... .PP .B chdate [ .B -am ] .I date file ... .SH DESCRIPTION .I Touch attempts to set the modification time of the .I files to the current time. If a .I file does not exist, it will be created unless option .B -c is present. .PP .I Chdate sets the access and modification times of .I files. The .I date comprises two or more arguments: a month (3 letters or more), a day number, an optional time in hour:min[:sec] form, and an optional year. A missing year means a time in the last 12 months. The options are .TP .B -a Change the access time only. .TP .B -m Change the modification time only. .PP .I Chdate knows how to carry between fields of a date. Only a file's owner or the super-user can change its date. .SH EXAMPLES .EX .ta \w'chdate jul 4 12:00 1976 independence 'u chdate jul 4 12:00 1976 independence chdate jul -3 1976 independence # backdate one week .EE .SH SEE ALSO .IR ls (1), .IR utime in .IR chmod (2), .IR stat (2), .IR timec (3), .IR chmod (1), .IR chown (8) .SH DIAGNOSTICS .I Chdate returns the number of files on which the date could not be changed. .SH BUGS .I Touch will not touch directories. .PP The first .I file name for .I chdate cannot begin with a digit.