Re: Command touch and irregular file names

[Ken Irving <fnkci@uaf.edu>]

On Tue, Aug 14, 2007 at 08:54:33PM -0400, - Tong - wrote:
> Hi, 
> 
> How to let command touch to work with irregular file names?
> 
> In my script I have 
> 
>  touch -r "$file1" "$file2"
> 
> the file1/2 can be anything file, ../path/file, /root/file, etc.
> 
> The problem is when file1/2 are irregular file names. E.g., -test.file1/2.

I've always had trouble with leading dashes in file names, very difficult
to escape properly or sufficiently.  An alternative might be to do the
operation from a perl (or whatever language) script.

Ken

> 
> I.e., anyway to make the following touch command works?
> 
>  $ touch -r "-test.file1" "-test.file2"
>  touch: invalid date format `est.file2'
> 
> FYI, I tried this but didn't work:
> 
>  $ touch -r -- "-test.file1" "-test.file2"
>  touch: invalid date format `est.file1'
> 
> I think if the touch command uses the standard gnu getopt lib, then
> the above code should work, shouldn't it?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> tong

-- 
Ken Irving, fnkci@uaf.edu