Windows version of the Unix touch command

If you want to touch the date stamp of a file using windows, use the following command at the command prompt:

copy /b filename.ext +,,

(where filename.ext is your file's name). The +,, is a special flag to copy telling it to simply update the date/time on the file:

* Changing the time and date of a file

If you want to assign the current time and date to a file without modifying the file, use the following syntax:

copy /b Source+,,

The commas indicate the omission of the Destination parameter.

If all you want is to change the file's last modified date (which was my case):

C:\> powershell  (ls your-file-name-here).LastWriteTime = Get-Date

@dash-tom-bang:

Here is MSDN's explanation of the mysterious '+' and commas:

copy /b Source+,,

The commas indicate the omission of the Destination parameter.

The copy command supports merging multiple files into a single destination file. Since a blank destination cannot be specified using a space character at the command prompt, two commas can be used to denote that.

And this is MSDN's copy command reference: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490886.aspx

type nul >>file & copy file +,,

• Creates file if it does not exist.
• Leaves file contents alone.
• Just uses cmd built-ins.
• Both last-access and creation times updated.

UPDATE

Gah! This doesn't work on read-only files, whereas touch does. I suggest:

:touch
if not exist "%~1" type nul >>"%~1"& goto :eof
set _ATTRIBUTES=%~a1
if "%~a1"=="%_ATTRIBUTES:r=%" (copy "%~1"+,,) else attrib -r "%~1" & copy "%~1"+,, & attrib +r "%~1"

The GnuWin32 project has Windows ports of the Gnu versions of the Unix command line utilities.

It comes as a number of separate packages and you can install just the commands you need with no other dependencies. For touch you would need the CoreUtils package.

Native win32 ports of many unix commands, including touch.

I've used it before and it works well - no installation, no DLLs, etc

cygwin comes with touch. I know you mentioned that you don't want to install a whole framework, but cygwin is quite lightweight, and can be called from dos command window without the whole unix-like command line turned on.

You can also control what tools to install, so you could simply install the touch.exe file, and leave the rest of the framework.

here is a recursive version using powershell... this will change the last modified time for all files and subdirectories, and files within this directory's subdirectories

ps c:myDir> Get-ChildItem . * -recurse | ForEach-Object{$_.LastWriteTime = get-date}

Try this one from CodeProject.

• No need to install.
• If you want, you can even modify the source.

from the website:

Funduc Software Touch is a free 'touch' utility that allows you to change the time/date &/or attribute stamps on one or more files. In addition, FS Touch can add/subtract a specified number of seconds from the existing file time. You can specify which file(s) and/or subdirectories to change via 'complex file masks'. The program can be run from interactively or the command line. New to version 7.2 is a command line switch to change file modified time stamp +/- the specified number of seconds.

FS Touch runs on Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, & Windows 8.

I found a quick way to do it if you have vim installed (not great for big files, will open entire file then close it...)

vim foobar.txt +wq!

The "+" sets argument to run the following commands. "wq!" is "write, quite, force". This will open file, do a save, then close it immediately afterward.

The five alternatives mentioned above, plus three more not mentioned here, can be found on SuperUser: "Windows Recursive Touch Command"

This is slightly unrelated to the original question, but I find this very useful on Windows due to the GUI.

I'm using the TouchPro utility which provides a GUI (builds into explorer shell):

http://www.jddesign.co.uk/products/touchpro/touchpro.htm

i tried this to create a empty file in my batch script ,you can use this

ECHO text>file1.txt

If you are using git for one or more projects, the mingw based git-bash for Windows has the touch command. I want to thank @greg-hewgill for pointing out to me that 'nix utilities exist for windows, because it was that which put me on the idea to try touch in git-bash.

This content can be saved to a reg file. This will add a right click context menu for all files with the "Touch File" ability (tested on Windows 7). Copy all the following lines to reg file. Run the file and approve the question. Right click on any file (or multiple files) - "Touch File" option is now available.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\Touch File]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\Touch File\command]
@="cmd /C copy /b \"%1\" +,,"

Try

fsutil file createnew new.txt 0

How about this:

echo %date% > C:\tmp\today.txt