Behavior of Command Line Expansion in touch command

ahmedb72 · 06-23-2009, 10:13 AM

Hi all,
Consider the following code:

Code:

#ls
#touch file[1-5].doc            # ----> pos1
#ls
file[1-5].doc
#rm -f file\[1-5\].doc
#ls
#touch file{1,2,3,4,5}.doc
#ls -l
total 20
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Jun 23 19:10 file1.doc
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Jun 23 19:10 file2.doc
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Jun 23 19:10 file3.doc
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Jun 23 19:10 file4.doc
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Jun 23 19:10 file5.doc
#touch file[1-5].doc            # ----> pos2
#ls -l
total 20
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Jun 23 19:10 file1.doc
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Jun 23 19:10 file2.doc
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Jun 23 19:10 file3.doc
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Jun 23 19:10 file4.doc
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 0 Jun 23 19:10 file5.doc

As you see, the command "touch file[1-5].doc" created the file "file[1-5].doc" in line position 1. Whereas, it did nothing when issued in position 2.

Thanks in advance.

David the H. · 06-23-2009, 10:44 AM

Touch isn't doing nothing in the second case, it's touching each of the files and updating their access times. You just didn't give enough time between the two commands for the system time to change.

Code:

david:[~/test/touchtest]$ touch file{0..6}.txt
david:[~/test/touchtest]$ ls
total 0
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david david 0 2009-06-24 00:42 file0.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david david 0 2009-06-24 00:42 file1.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david david 0 2009-06-24 00:42 file2.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david david 0 2009-06-24 00:42 file3.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david david 0 2009-06-24 00:42 file4.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david david 0 2009-06-24 00:42 file5.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david david 0 2009-06-24 00:42 file6.txt
david:[~/test/touchtest]$ touch file[1-5].txt
david:[~/test/touchtest]$ ls
total 0
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david david 0 2009-06-24 00:42 file0.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david david 0 2009-06-24 00:43 file1.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david david 0 2009-06-24 00:43 file2.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david david 0 2009-06-24 00:43 file3.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david david 0 2009-06-24 00:43 file4.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david david 0 2009-06-24 00:43 file5.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david david 0 2009-06-24 00:42 file6.txt
david:[~/test/touchtest]$

As I understand it, [] specifies a matching range. In the first case there's nothing in the directory to match, so the touch command creates a new file. In the second case there are files that match the numbered range, so the program updates them instead. Notice how it only updated the files 1-5 from the group.

ahmedb72 · 06-23-2009, 11:46 PM

Hi David,
Thanks, your reply makes sense. However, regarding your comment:

Quote:

In the first case there's nothing in the directory to match, so the touch command creates a new file.

Why in first case the touch command didn't create five files?
The command updated access time of five files when they're there and it created only one file when they aren't. I suppose it should have created five files!

linuxlover.chaitanya · 06-24-2009, 12:03 AM

It created 7 files in the first case naming them file0.txt through file6.txt.
Look at the command that David issues at first attempt.

Code:

touch file{0..6}.txt

The second was the example for you to show that once the files are already there it will only change the time stamp for it.

ahmedb72 · 06-24-2009, 12:14 AM

Hi Linuxlover,
When I said "first case", I meant the command in my code example (not David's). The command was touch file[1-5].doc

rikxik · 06-24-2009, 04:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ahmedb72

Hi David,
Thanks, your reply makes sense. However, regarding your comment:

Why in first case the touch command didn't create five files?
The command updated access time of five files when they're there and it created only one file when they aren't. I suppose it should have created five files!

The [1-5] magic is called filename generation ([-], *, ? etc. are used for this). If no file is found which matches the pattern, the string passed is left as it is. If found, only then its expanded. When you issued your first touch command, there were no files matching file[1-5].doc so it was taken literally.

David the H. · 06-24-2009, 10:00 AM

What would you expect "touch file*.doc" to do?

Well, if there's are any files in the directory like "file.doc", "file1.doc", or "filewithalongname.doc", etc., it will update them. But if there are no matching filenames in the directory, then touch still has to do something with the string, and so it creates a new file called "file*.doc".

What it won't do is name the file with a list of ALL of the characters that * could match (fileabcdefg1234#$+!#.etc.doc), or even worse, a separate file for each possible match (filea.doc, fileb.doc, file7.doc, file%.doc....)!

"[1-5]" works in exactly the same way as * does; only the range of characters that it will match is more limited. It's not a character generating string, only a character matching string.

fpmurphy · 06-25-2009, 08:33 AM

It is very simple. The shell does globbing on the pathname and passes the results of that globbing to touch as command line arguments. If the results of globbing are zero than the original pathname is passed to touch.

Here is the POSIX.1 specfication for touch: http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/...ies/touch.html
Here is an explanation of shell globbing for Bash: http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/globbingref.html

ahmedb72 · 06-26-2009, 03:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David the H.

It's not a character generating string, only a character matching string.

Thanks David for your comments.
Now, what are the character generating strings and character matching strings?
For example, I noticed touch{1..5}.doc generated the files.

David the H. · 06-26-2009, 04:32 AM

AFAIK, for character generation that's it. It's called brace expansion, and it's explained here, along with all the other special character expressions you may run across.

ahmedb72 · 07-01-2009, 02:51 AM

Thanks David for that great reference link.

Do you recommend me any other links or books to learn Shell Scripting fundamentals?