[mdlug] Can the date stamp on a file be ahead of the clock

[Aaron Kulkis]

R. Kannan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am seeing a puzzling behavior in a linux machine at work. See the series of commands and the responses below
> 
> 
> kez at vision->uname -a
> Linux vision 2.6.16.21-0.8-smp #1 SMP Mon Jul 3 18:25:39 UTC 2006 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
> kez at vision->touch tt1
> kez at vision->ls -l tt1
> -rw-r--r-- 1 kez hks 0 2007-09-06 14:49 tt1
> kez at vision->date
> Thu Sep  6 14:42:16 EDT 2007
> 
> How could this be? I did not think this was possible...
> 

$ man touch
TOUCH(1)                         User Commands 
TOUCH(1)



NAME
        touch - change file timestamps

SYNOPSIS
        touch [OPTION]... FILE...

DESCRIPTION
        Update  the  access  and modification times of each FILE to the
        current time.

        Mandatory arguments to long options are  mandatory  for  short
        options too.

        -a     change only the access time

        -c, --no-create
               do not create any files

        -d, --date=STRING
               parse STRING and use it instead of current time

        -f     (ignored)

        -m     change only the modification time

        -r, --reference=FILE
               use this file's times instead of current time

        -t STAMP
               use [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss] instead of current time

        --time=WORD
               change the specified time: WORD is access, atime, or use:
               equivalent to -a WORD is modify or mtime: equivalent to -m

        --help display this help and exit

        --version
               output version information and exit

        Note that the -d and -t options accept different time-date
        formats.

        If a FILE is -, touch standard output.

AUTHOR
        Written by Paul Rubin, Arnold Robbins, Jim  Kingdon,  David 
MacKenzie,
        and Randy Smith.

REPORTING BUGS
        Report bugs to <bug-coreutils at gnu.org>.

COPYRIGHT
        Copyright (c) 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
        This  is  free  software.   You may redistribute copies of it
        under  the  terms   of  the   GNU   General   Public  License
        <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.   There  is NO WARRANTY,
        to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO
        The full documentation for touch is maintained as a Texinfo
        manual.  If the  info  and  touch programs are properly
        installed at your site, the command

               info touch

        should give you access to the complete manual.



touch 5.93                        April 2006 
TOUCH(1)