This is an example of how to touch a file. We will make use of the org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils class, that provides file manipulation utilities. Touching a file implies that you should:
- Create a new File by converting the pathname string of the file into an abstract pathname.
- Use
lastModified()API method of File that returns the time that the file denoted by this abstract pathname was last modified. - Use
touch(File file)method oforg.apache.commons.io.FileUtils, that implements the same behaviour as the “touch” utility on Unix, changing the date and time stamps.
Let’s take a look at the code snippet that follows:
package com.javacodegeeks.snippets.core;
import java.io.IOException;
import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;
import java.io.File;
public class TouchFile {
public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
// we take a reference to an actual file on disk
File testFile = new File("test.txt");
// we take a reference of the file last modification date/time
long fileTimestamp = testFile.lastModified();
// using the touch() operation we change the file date and time stamps
FileUtils.touch(testFile);
System.out.println("File date / time was updated : " + (testFile.lastModified() > fileTimestamp));
} catch (IOException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
Output:
File date / time was updated : true
This was an example of how to touch a file.
