The drop-in replacement that has its own date time parser as a library in crates.io, independently logs successes, failures, and time-modifications that we all've been waiting for, because it's well known that touch is the only tool separating us from world peace, and ruining our workflows! who doesn't need a RIIR for the GNU touch?.
no, no one needs a cross-platform, shortcuts mkdir -p, finishes tasks in 0.001 seconds less, that logs every action replacement for GNU touch. But then I thought about it:
Problem:
“I need to create an empty file.”
Existing solution:
touch file.txtJacob Dayan (R-touch founder & developer):
"Interesting. But what if we built a cross-platform Rust implementation with a custom date parser, audit logging, directory handling, multiple licensing models, benchmarking, and a reusable library?"
then I started working on R-touch as a main project. Well, it was actually my first project, that's why you can see commits like "Removed Cargo.lock; unnecessary file - it's being created automatically" from the early days.
Jokes aside, rtouch is a fast, modern, and slightly opinionated recreation of the classic Unix touch command, built from scratch in Rust.
Unlike the classic touch that silently fails or acts weirdly when encountering directories, R-touch actually talks to you, manages its own system logs safely, and ensures you don't accidentally trash your system layout.
"Why did the developer use R-touch? Because standard touch was giving them some boundary issues." (Sorry, we promised only semi-decent jokes).
- GNU Touch Parity (
-a,-m,-d): Selectively update access time (-a), modification time (-m), or both. Set custom timestamps using-d/--datewith support for standard dates, GNU touch format, and human-readable relative expressions. - Flexible Date & Time Interpreter: Supports ISO 8601, RFC 2822/3339, GNU touch syntax (
[[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss]), and human expressions likenow,yesterday,tomorrow,2 days ago,+3 hours,-15 minutes,next tuesday, andtoday 14:30— with clear and helpful error diagnostics if an invalid date is provided. - Smart Directory Handling: If you try to create a file where a directory already exists,
R-touchstops and asks you what to do instead of blowing up. - Parent Directory Creation (
-p/--parents): Need to touchdeep/nested/folder/file.txt? Use-por--parentsand letR-touchbuild the directory tree for you. - Automatic Logging: Logs successes and errors into your local OS data directory (
~/.local/share/rtouchon Linux or%LocalAppData%\rtouchon Windows) so you always have an audit trail. Can be disabled with--no-log. - Platform-Friendly: Built-in Windows path separator normalization (because backslashes shouldn't be your problem).
Usage: rtouch [OPTIONS] <PATHS>...
Arguments:
<PATHS>... File paths to touch or create
Options:
-p, --parents Create parent directories if they do not exist
-a, --atime, --access-time Change only the access time
-m, --mtime, --modification-time Change only the modification time
-d, --date <DATE> Parse date string expression and use it instead of current time
--no-log Disable logging to log files
-h, --help Print help
-V, --version Print version
# Create a new file or update timestamps of an existing file
rtouch file.txt
# Touch multiple files at once
rtouch file1.txt file2.txt file3.rs# Automatically create missing parent directories
rtouch -p src/components/button/index.tsx# Updates only atime; preserves mtime on existing files
rtouch -a document.pdf# Updates only mtime; preserves atime on existing files
rtouch -m document.pdfR-touch supports rich date/time expressions:
-
Relative Time Expressions:
rtouch -d "yesterday" file.txt rtouch -d "2 days ago" file.txt rtouch -d "tomorrow" file.txt rtouch -d "+3 hours" file.txt rtouch -d "-30 minutes" file.txt rtouch -d "next friday" file.txt rtouch -d "last month" file.txt rtouch -d "today 14:30" file.txt
-
Standard ISO / RFC Formats:
rtouch -d "2026-08-19 14:30:00" file.txt rtouch -d "2026-08-19T14:30:00Z" file.txt rtouch -d "2026-08-19" file.txt
-
GNU Touch Timestamp Syntax (
[[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss]):rtouch -d "202608191430.00" file.txt rtouch -d "2608191430" file.txt rtouch -d "08191430" file.txt
# Set only access time to yesterday
rtouch -a -d "yesterday" report.docx
# Set only modification time to a specific date
rtouch -m -d "2026-01-01 00:00:00" archive.tar.gz
# Create with parent directories, custom date, and disable logging
rtouch -p --no-log -d "2 days ago" logs/2026/08/old.logMake sure you have Rust and Cargo installed on your machine.
cargo install rtouch- Clone this repository:
git clone https://github.com/Jacob-Dayan/r-touch.git cd r-touch
If you are on Unix or Unix-like (e.g. Linux, macOS) OS:
chmod +x ./build/build_unix.sh
./build/build-unix.shIf you are on Windows (user-level installation):
./build/build-user.ps1And for machine-level Windows installation (makes the executable available to all users on the machine, recommended):
./build/build-system.ps1You can find the benchmarking results and get more information about the benchmarking process in the benchmarks directory.
- Linux 🐧
- macOS 🍎💻
- Windows 🪟
- Windows Subsystem For Linux (I don't have an emoji for that)
This project is double licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later and Apache-2.0:
- The rtouch-cli (src/main.rs) program is licensed under the GPL-3.0-or-later
- The rtouch library (src/lib.rs) is licensed under the Apache-2.0 OR MIT; which are both GPL-compatible; you can use it in projects licensed under either license
Notice: Due to a tag migration script refactoring (
R-touch-*tov*), GitHub Release publication dates were reset. The underlying code history, original commit dates, and Git tags remain fully preserved in the repository tree.