atime, mtime, ctime
A file in a typical
Linux filesystem has three timestampes: atime (last access time), mtime (last modification time) and ctime (last change time).
The modification time is the last time that the data (content) of the file has changed.
The change time is the last time that the attributes of a file have changed.
With
cp
, the timestamps (also ctime?) can be preserved by using the
--preserve=timestamps
option.
touch
can be used to change a file's
atime and
mtime, but not the
ctime.