Windows equivalent of the Linux command 'touch'?

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.

Edit based on comments by Lumi and Justin: put this in a batch file, eg. touch.cmd

@COPY /B %1+,, %1

This works even if the file is not in the current directory (tested on Windows 7).

I've used and recommend unxutils which are native Win32 ports of lots of common Unix utilities. There is a touch command in there.

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"

@dash-tom-bang:

Here is Technet'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 Technet's copy command reference: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490886.aspx