Subject: Re: bug#9742: touch option for existence?

From: Paul Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 08:11:53 -0700

Classic "touch" has always bothered me:

  touch -a FOO updates FOO's last-access time.
  touch -m FOO updates FOO's last-modification time.
  touch -a -m FOO updates both times.

Logically, then, "touch FOO", with neither -a nor -m,
should update neither time.  But it doesn't.  It
updates both times.

I know why this is so -- among other things, it's
historical practice and we can't change the above behavior.
Still, there ought to be a way for "touch" to update
neither time, via a GNU extension.  This
would make the behavior of GNU touch more orthogonal.

This is why I have long been thinking of adding a new option that
would mean "neither -a nor -m".  Admittedly it's low priority.