« Count number of lines in a file using DOS
Extra Update Center Module - Netbeans 6 beta 2 »

touch with DOS commands

Vote This Post DownVote This Post Up (+3 rating, 3 votes)
Loading ... Loading ...

I often use Cygwin to get access to a few linux style commands that I need. The command touch is one of those commands. In case your not familiar with it it will create/update the creation and modification times of a file to the current time. If the file specified does not exist it will also create an empty file.

The problem I recently encountered though was I needed the touch functionality but on a computer that did not have Cygwin installed. Of course I could have just put together a quick little C# or Java program to do the trick but I still would have to install the app onto this other computer.

The solution to this delimia was to use the following dos command which will create an empty file:
copy /y nul file.txt



This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 at 10:49 pm and is filed under DOS/Shell. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “touch with DOS commands”

  1. errr Says:
    February 12th, 2008 at 12:46 pm

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

  2. Brett Says:
    February 12th, 2008 at 3:02 pm

    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.

  3. masc Says:
    February 17th, 2008 at 2:24 pm

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

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

  4. masc Says:
    February 17th, 2008 at 3:24 pm

    @copy %1 + nul %1 /by

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

  5. dolphin Says:
    September 26th, 2008 at 9:02 am

    @COPY /B %1 +,,

    I found that command on the following page:
    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/69581

  6. Simone Says:
    October 3rd, 2008 at 7:36 am

    type nul >> “c:\file.txt”

Leave a Reply