Re: Coreutils-gotchas

[Bernhard Voelker]

On 12/16/2015 07:52 PM, Pádraig Brady wrote:
> On 16/12/15 18:45, Assaf Gordon wrote:
>> The recent "touch -d yesterday" might be a 'gotcha'
>> ( http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2015-12/msg00041.html ) .
>>
>>
>> Something like:
>>    On GNU/Linux, "touch -d now" requires only write permissions to a file,
>>    while "touch -d [SPECIFIC-DATE]" requires file ownership or root 
>> permission
>>    (and similarly, "touch -t").
> 
> That's a Linux gotcha if anything.
> I fear the page will get too noisy/large if including such system policies.

And it's already documented in the Texinfo manual:

     When setting file timestamps to the current time, `touch' can change
  the timestamps for files that the user does not own but has write
  permission for.  Otherwise, the user must own the files.

Have a nice day,
Berny