Update file, but not alter file modify date. Can it be done?

Question

In Linux, can i change file content, but keep the same modification date of that file? If yes, then how? Thanks.

Answer 1

Get what is the modification Date of your file. Change your files content and then you can change the modification date by touch command.For example

touch -m -t 09082000 file
to change the modification time to 8 sep, 20:00.

You can change the modification date to the past too, for 10/15/1998 12:30 the command would be something like this:

touch -m -t 19981015123000 file

Answer 2

another possibility might be a symbolic link?

if you have alink->a.txt, you change the content of a.txt, the last modi time of alink won't be updated.

Answer 3

You can memorize the modification date before modifying the content; After the content modification, you can modify back the date to the initial value. It can be done in Linux from the command line. For example:

touch -t 09082000 file to change the modification time to 8 sep, 20:00. More info can be found here.