On Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 1:33 PM Andreas Schwab <sch...@linux-m68k.org> wrote:
> On Nov 17 2021, Michael J. Baars wrote: > > > When -N stands for NEW, and touch (-am) gives you a new file > > It doesn't. The file hasn't been modified after it was last read. > touch creates the given file if it doesn't previously exist. Immediately afterwards, it could be called "new" in the usual English meaning, and would be new in the sense that nothing was done to it after it was created. But: $ echo $BASH_VERSION 5.1.8(3)-maint $ rm foo.txt $ ls -l foo.txt ls: cannot access 'foo.txt': No such file or directory $ touch -am foo.txt $ if test -N foo.txt; then echo is new; else echo is NOT new; fi is NOT new Of course "new" is not an exact concept, it could be defined e.g. to compare the file timestamps with the current time. Anyway, the documentation doesn't seem to say 'test -N' tests if the file is "new".
