Yeah. It could just as well have issued a file not found error when you try to touch a nonexistent file. And we would be none the wiser about what we’re missing in the world.
“Do one thing and do it very well” is the UNIX philosophy after all; if you’re 99% likely to just create that missing file after you get a file not found error, why should touch waste your time?
Does anyone actually use
touchfor its intended purpose? Must be up there withcat.TIL it’s actually for changing timestamps.
https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/touch.1.html
The intended use of
touchis to update the timestamp right?Yeah. It could just as well have issued a file not found error when you try to touch a nonexistent file. And we would be none the wiser about what we’re missing in the world.
“Do one thing and do it very well” is the UNIX philosophy after all; if you’re 99% likely to just create that missing file after you get a file not found error, why should
touchwaste your time?Because now touch does two things.
Without touch, we could “just” use the shell to create files.
Touch does one thing from a “contract” perspective:
Ensure the timestamp of <file> is <now>