Giving a file/directory the same modification date as another

Question

How do I "copy" the modification date and time from one file/dir to another in Unix-based systems?

Answer 1

You have some options:

• Use touch -t STAMP -m file if you want to change the time
• Use cp --preserve=timestamps if you're copying the files and want to preserve the time
• Use touch -r to set the time to a "reference" file

Answer 2

For convenience later on, put the following line in your .bashrc file:

cptimestamp() {
  if [ -z $2 ] ; then
    echo "usage: cptimestamp <sourcefile> <destfile>"
    exit
  fi
  touch -d @$(stat -c "%Y" "$1") "$2"
}

Execute "source ~/.bashrc" and you're ready to go. If you prefer a script instead, remove the first and last lines -- then prepend "#!/bin/sh"