Comments on: touch with DOS commands

By: masc

masc — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:24:48 +0000

@copy %1 + nul %1 /by

also works, provided copy is new enough to test that it shouldn’t overwrite the original file

By: masc

masc — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 22:24:40 +0000

@copy nul: /b +%1 tmp.$$$
@move tmp.$$$ %1

=touch.bat
doesn’t change anything in file.org, only time and date

By: Brett

Brett — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:02:12 +0000

You are right! I have only used that command to quickly create an empty file. I have never used it for updating the modification time of an existing file.

I do not know of a way to modify the date modified of a file in dos without using a third party program. Although, if you want the date modified to be updated to the current time you could use one of the follow commands:

1. This copies the file to a temp File and then copies the temp File back over the original. Then deletes the temp File.
type file.txt > tmpFile.txt | type tmpFile.txt > file.txt | del tmpFile.txt

2. Type: edit file.txt, then hit: alt, f, s, alt, f, x

I really think both solutions are hacks at best. I also wonder what would happen to unicode files or files that have unix style line endings.

By: errr

errr — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:46:28 +0000

That seems to clear(!!) the file, rather than touching it