Re: touch - cannot use options "backward"

[Laurent Charpentier]

Hi Phil,

> For curiosity's sake, I've been trying to track down the pedigree of
> this --backward option to touch, as although I think I've disproved its
> necessity, it seems a useful idea.
My application:
Basically I have some pictures taken from a different timezone and I forgot to
change the time of my camera. I want to change the timestamp of these pictures
in order to reflect the correct time. The --backward/--forward are exactly what
I need, and when I googled "linux touch backward", the first hit uses and
describes these backward/forward options for the "touch" command.
I would find convenient to support these 2 options (they were existing and
supported in earlier versions).

> To address the original requirement though, would it be useful for GNU
> touch to support an "--offset" option, taking a signed [fractional?]
> number of seconds to affect the target date?
I don't feel necessary to rename the option to "--offset" since
backward/forward have been existing in earlier versions.
But I think it's more a personal preference here.

By the way, I used version 4.5.3, and it works (the options are present).
For example, to modify a timestamp by 1 hour:
touch -r foo -backward 3600 foo

Thanks,
Laurent

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