One Quickie

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Changing a file's modification date (Unix->Random)

Sometimes you're doing work which uses a file's modification time to decide whether you want to do something (like don't process today's log file, or remove a really old file). You could use a time machine to test this, or use touch. You can specify a specific date or time using the format [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.SS]]. Here's an example with alternating bolds to make it easier to read:

% touch -t 200703141536 snork.waffle

% ls -l snork.waffle
-rw-r--r--   1 markd  markd  298 Mar 14 15:36 snork.waffle