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Yishai
Asked: 2010-09-03 15:32:55 +0800 CST

File timestamp not changing even with touch

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I have the following problem. I have a bash script that uses wget to get a few files from the build server, and then scp's them over to the production system: Here is the relevant snippet:

#Several of these lines
wget -nv -O birt_reports.zip "http://buildserver:8111/guestAuth/repository/download/bt6/.lastFinished/birt_reports.zip"

#files in the for loop left out for simplicity
for upload_file in "birt_reports.zip"; do

    scp -B -i /root/$keyfile  $upload_file $user@gateway:/home/$user/deploy_staging
    touch $upload_file
done

Even with the touch in there the time shown in ls -l of the directory is the time the file was first created. If I do the wget outside the bash script or the touch outside the bash script, the time updates correctly.

What could the issue be?

centos wget timestamp

3 Answers

  1. Using the bellow command it is supose to set the timestamp of the file to your system current datetime:

    touch -t `date +%y%m%d%H%M.%S` /path/to/filename

    You could try it instead of the plain touch command alone.

    Also when you run your bash script run with:

    bash -xv your_bash_script.bash

    also try using the full path of your commands, to verify the full path of the command do:

    whereis touch

    Since you could be using this without a shell enviroment using the full path is more recommended to make sure it will run every command without problems.

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  2. perhaps /bin/touch -m $upload_file is better suited, as it changes the modification time to the current time.

    • 1

  3. Is the file being properly scp'ed? (I can't comment on your question post)

    If not, then I think you're missing something to the uploaded file path within the for loop for both commands. Prix points out the way to check the actual commands.

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