Touch can't change access time

activeco · 05-22-2006, 04:35 AM

Actually it does, but not to the time specified.

I wanted to change access time of a file with the command:

touch -a -t 0505051559 filename

however the result returned with 'ls -cl' is always the (current) time of the last touch command.

What do I miss?

jschiwal · 05-22-2006, 06:37 AM

To list the access time, use "ls -l --time=atime".

Code:

$ echo :>sample
$ ls -l sample
-rwxr-xr-x 1 schiwalj mkpasswd 2 May 22 06:38 sample
$ touch -a -t 0505051559 sample
$ ls -l --time=atime sample
-rwxr-xr-x 1 schiwalj mkpasswd 2 May  5  2005 sample

activeco · 05-22-2006, 06:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jschiwal

To list the access time, use "ls -l --time=atime".

Indeed.
Now I understand what they mean with "--time=WORD" from 'man ls'.

Thanks a lot jschiwal.