Modify date and/or time of file, directory or symlink, recursively (for Windows)
Copyright(C) 2003-2019, PT SOFTINDO Jakarta
email: gm.dadang _at_ gmail.com
All rights reserved.
toucher version: 1.0.4.0, build: 596
created: 2003.09.27, last revised: 2018.04.10
Synopsys:
Modify date and/or time of file, directory or symlink, recursively
Usage:
toucher [ options ] files...
Arguments:
files (mandatory) : filename/mask to be processed (eg. C:\*.*)
options (optional) : similar to those of UNIX touch utility
Note for options:
- must be prefixed with either single HYPHEN (-) or SLASH (/)
- (mostly) case insensitive, -a is identical with /A
- may be a toggle (switch) or may need additional argument
- the later argument overrides or _toggles_ the previous one
the switch turned off the second time you typed it in as argument
thus a switch can be turned on and off, and on and off and on..
Options/switches are:
-a, -m change a:access or m:modification time (default: both)
-x change creation time (Not too useful as you might think,
all apps and file operations use m:modification time)
-c DO create file if not exist (disables s:recursive)
-d DATE translate date string (see formats below)
-e, -f process only e:DIRS or f:FILES, or both (default)
-h or -l process SYMLINKS/reparse points, not the real files
-n test-mode, do not do actual modification
-o, -q show o:options/arguments or q:quiet (unless error)
-Q be very quiet while processing files, don't show error
-r FILE get reference datetime from file/dir: FILE
(honestly, this switch should have meant recursive)
-s recursive. process subdirs (disables c:create)
-S use depth-first traversal on recursive operation
-t CTIME use time in format [[[CC]YY]MMDD]hhmm[.ss]
-u uSTAMP lowercase u, use UNIX timestamp (seconds since 1970)
-U mSTAMP UPPERCASE U, use MS/Excel timestamp (seconds since 1600)
*STAMP can be prefixed by 0x for hex digits or 0 for octal
tbh, I don't think anybody ever use octal anymore
-v show version
-y, -z set only y:DATE or z:TIME, or both (default)
-- stop parsing next remaining arguments as opts/switches
-?1909++ this help
-> modify all_time_fields (access, create, mod.) at once
-= a|c|m use a:access c:creation m:modification time from the
target file itself (overrides -d and -t, obviously)
DATETIME formats:
(note that delimiter is _important_ for date/month/year order)
mm/dd/yy OR mm/dd/yyyy AND/OR hh:mm:ss - US
yy.mm.dd OR yyyy.mm.dd AND/OR hh:mm:ss - ISO 8601
dd-mm-yy OR dd-mm-yyyy AND/OR hh:mm:ss - Europe/Aus/Asia
- 2 digits year: 1938 - 2037 (32 bits UNIX last epoch)
- "DATE + TIME" must be delimited by exactly 1 space/tab
CTIME fields:
CC YY MMDD hhmm .ss
- required fields: hhmm
- unspecified fields will be set equal to current time
Return code:
number of files successfully processed set in ERRORLEVEL
Clarification about recursive option against sub directory:
The recursive switch: -s should have been denoted by -r, unfortunaltely it has been taken as reference in POSIX touch. Option/switch -s is not used to specify target directory. The program always operates in current directory.
Option recursive against subdir: -s DIRNAMES... will match all occurences of DIRNAMES recursively in current directory, not ALL files/dirs under subdirs DIRNAMES.
However seems weird, this is actually a consistent and predictable way; ones might wanted to do exactly like that,
and it's not possible to be achieved if the program gives leeway to -s ACTUALLY_A_FILE to process ACTUALLY_A_FILE as subdir, and match all files/dirs under it.
In fact the program doesn't care if they are subdirs or files at all, only the name (string) and the recursive switch (-s) that matters.
To match all files/dirs under subdir DIRNAME you can simply add wildcard after DIRNAME eg. -s DIRNAME\*