DOS ain't dead

FreeDOS' TOUCH.COM works fine and is well-written (IMHO) although it still needs some tweaking (e.g. convert to NASM or FASM, add LFN support).

However, the main issue I have with it (among other touch utils) is that none seem to allow touching a read-only file! Why? I can't imagine that's really a worthwhile protection. At least two (DR-DOS' TOUCH.EXE and 4DOS's built-in TOUCH) support overriding it (/R or /F, respectively) but most others don't (even Charles Dye's improved version).

There's also no common way to easily preserve file attributes before touching in order to be restored afterwards either, so that's bad for .BAT files. Anyways, in the interest of simplicity (and because it's a minor fix), I wrote a debug script instead of updating the TASM srcs. In short, if not creating a new file (which -C forbids), why open for read/write (3D02)??

Feedback welcome.

@echo off
if not exist %0 %0.bat
if not exist touch.com goto end
if not exist touch2.com copy /b touch.com touch2.com
attrib -r touch2.com
debug touch2.com < %0
goto end

; patch for Kris Heidenstrom's TOUCH.COM 1.4.3 (for FreeDOS)
; Monday 01 March 2010, rugxulo _AT_ gmail _DOT_ com

; what it does: lets -C also permit touching readonly +R files
; int 21h,3D '02'h (read/write) fails to open on +R files

; TODO: convert whole program from TASM to FASM; fix this; add LFN support

;NewCall=09C0
;NewEOF=0145h
;Patch=0146h
;CFlag=058Eh
;ret=0151h

; (only if you want to bump the version number to 1.4.'4' for -F)
;e 127
;34

a 09C0
; former home of "mov ax,3D02", patched with call to fix
call 0146

a 0145
; = 13 bytes below
; (1Ah = EOF / Ctrl-Z marker for "type")
db 1A
mov ax,3D02
test byte ptr [058E],1
jz 0151
; salc
db D6
ret

w
Q
Q

:end
for %%a in (touch touch2) do if not exist %%a.com goto bye
dir touch*.com | find /i "com"
echo on
REM ... generate an error (to prove it didn't work before)
attrib +r touch.com
touch2 touch.com
REM ... try again with -C (to prove it works now)
touch2 -C touch.com
@echo off
dir touch*.com | find /i "com"
:bye

EDIT: Changed ".com" to "com" for some DOS shells.

---
Know your limits.h

And here's why I'm using TOUCH at all:

/* REXX */

if arg() = 0 then do
say ''
say 'GZIPDATE.REX -- view or touch .gz file''s stored internal *nix date'
say '( requires Regina or BRexx )'
say ''
say 'gzipdate [-t] myfile.tgz'
say ''
say '-t   touch (else only views internal date; uses external TOUCH.COM)'
say ''
exit 255
end

parse arg option filename
parse version ver

if pos('Regina',ver) = 0 & pos('brexx',ver) = 0 then do
say ''
say 'Regina or BRexx required!'
exit 1
end

if option \= '-t' then filename = option

if filename = '' then do
say ''
say 'No .GZ file specified!'
exit 2
end

ch = charin(filename,1,2)
if ch \= '1f'x || '8b'x then do
say ''
say 'Not a valid .GZ file!'
exit 3
end

ch = charin(filename,5,4)
mydate = c2d(reverse(ch))

if pos('Regina',ver) \= 0 then ,
newdate = date('U',mydate,'T')     /* Unix->USA, not ANSI !! */

if pos('brexx',ver) \= 0 then do
if import('dates.r') = 0 then do
newdate = GMTime(mydate)
newdate = delstr(newdate,pos(' ',newdate))
parse var newdate year 5 6 monthday
newdate = monthday'/'year
end
else do
say ''
say 'Can''t find BRexx''s dates.r'
exit 4
end
end

say newdate   /* Regina: 02/21/10  BRexx: 2/21/2010 */

/*
using Kris Heidenstrom's TOUCH.COM for FreeDOS
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/...
      /1.0/pkgs/touch[xs].zip
*/

if option = '-t' then do
'dir' filename
'touch' newdate filename
'dir' filename
end

/* EOF */

---
Know your limits.h

> However, the main issue I have with it (among other touch utils) is that
> none seem to allow touching a read-only file! Why? I can't imagine that's
> really a worthwhile protection. At least two (DR-DOS' TOUCH.EXE and 4DOS's
> built-in TOUCH) support overriding it (/R or /F, respectively) but most
> others don't (even Charles Dye's improved version).

FYI, PC Magazine also created 2 touch utils which were available as follows:
touch.com (v7n07.zip) - assembler version with soruce by Michael J. Mefford
touchw.exe (v8n02.zip) - C version by ?? (C ver doesn't like readonly files!)

I only ever used Michael J. Mefford version which from memory never had any problems with read-only files. As for the later C version I have only just come across it whilst relocating these files now and according to the C source it doesn't handle readonly files.... it looks rubbish in comparism to Micheal's earlier assembler version - all of his work was always great IMHO!

But sadly I am not going to link to either. Why? Well in the past PC Mag utils were distributed not only with their magazines and but also widely across Bulletin Boards and ftp sites like simtel.net. Sadly getting hold of PC Mags early utils now days is no longer easy. The reason why if my memory serves me correctly is comes down the publisher of PC Mag (Ziff Davis) deciding in the mid 90's to contact simtel (and mirrors) and legally ask them to remove all the PC Mag utils which at the time were widely available. Thus you will find their utils coming back in most cases but without the underlying files which were removed.

I was never a contacted directly myself but remember this all vaguely as I ran a BBS distributing demos
and also mirroring a lot of Simtel content using Walnut creek's CD-ROM's designed for that purpose!

I seem to remember PC Mag's utils may have then been available online on their website to "existing" PC Magazine customers via their archive but as I'm not an existing customer I don't know if this is indeed still the case.

I was fortunately also a regular PC Mag customer in the past who purchased several years worth of their magazines with their coverdisks. In otherwords I have own legal original copies of their utils in addition to CD-ROM's etc.


> There's also no common way to easily preserve file attributes before
> touching in order to be restored afterwards either,

Hmmm, noted. Remind me of this again in the future for RJDOS (or whatever it might be renamed to) as I'm planning/working on some similiar save/restore features which I could re-implement for attributes etc. In short what I'm working to include (long term) is things like save interrupts, run process, restore interrupts - why? Well for several reasons: 1) provide features to *flag* this type of behaviour. 2) To help provide work arounds for bugs.
Importantly I'm planning to do this across DOS versions as much as possible.

Still back to touch....


> if not creating a new file (which -C forbids), why open for read/write
> (3D02)??

No doubt for safety, since read-only is effectively saying "don't touch me".


> Feedback welcome.
> debug touch2.com < %0

I seem to remember this may fail on some (newer?) DOS shells and you need to do %0.bat on those otherwise the file is NOT found. I can't remember off the top of my head what/where but I definately remember running into that problem.

Last time I ran into this I seem to remember writting lines to test and try both, e.g. something like this (note basic "concept" code below not actual):

if exist .\%0 call debug <%0
if exist .\%0.bat call debug <%0.bat

that way trapping both instances and still allowing ppl to rename the BATch.
As above I can't remember which DOS shell or how/why off the top of my head and the above code is just a non-working example to provide an example.

> FYI, PC Magazine also created 2 touch utils which were available as
> follows:
> touch.com (v7n07.zip) - assembler version with soruce by Michael J.
> Mefford
> touchw.exe (v8n02.zip) - C version by ?? (C ver doesn't like readonly
> files!)
>
> But sadly I am not going to link to either. The reason why if
> my memory serves me correctly is comes down the publisher of PC Mag (Ziff
> Davis) deciding in the mid 90's to contact simtel (and mirrors) and
> legally ask them to remove all the PC Mag utils which at the time were
> widely available.

Yes, I'm aware of that, and yes it's a little silly, considering it limits the usefulness, but oh well, we can't have everything, can we? :-/

> > if not creating a new file (which -C forbids), why open for read/write
> > (3D02)??
>
> No doubt for safety, since read-only is effectively saying "don't touch me".

Except I never thought of readonly in that way. +R usually means (to me) "don't modify the file data" whereas touch only changes the file's time (in the file system itself). It's very rare that someone would accidentally touch a readonly file, but to fair that's why it should probably be optional (e.g. DR-DOS /R or 4DOS /F or FD-TOUCH /C here).

> > debug touch2.com < %0
>
> I seem to remember this may fail on some (newer?) DOS shells and you need
> to do %0.bat on those otherwise the file is NOT found.
>
> if exist .\%0 call debug <%0
> if exist .\%0.bat call debug <%0.bat

Yes, that's why I did this at the top (see below).

if not exist %0 %0.bat

BTW, GNU touch (Coreutils, formerly Fileutils, e.g. DJGPP's FIL41B.ZIP) seems to not have the +r bug. However, in my limited experience, it's weird in what it accepts. FreeDOS touch is more forgiving. Heck, even DR-DOS touch whines if you don't specify the year correctly despite the help usage (needs four-digit year or maybe two, I forget). Charles Dye's version is good, but it has no LFN support nor +r override (though it lets you change attributes ... but I dislike removing +r for no good reason).

FreeDOS touch is written in TASM (boo hiss ... but I did a temporary quick hack to NASM which I will have to polish up if anyone cares), but at least it supports various non-US date formats, assemble-time NLS, switchars (anybody use that?), no file lists, no LFNs, DOS 2.0 compatible (QUALPATH.ASM seems to mimic int 21h,60h [DOS 3+]), but only changes modification time (not FAT32 access or creation time). In other words, the best touch util is probably the one in 4DOS, but not everybody uses 4DOS, and it's quite a big util to use just for touching files.

P.S. Slightly annoying that you have to use a file handle to touch a file instead of a pointer to ASCIIZ, but I guess "open + touch" isn't so much to ask.

EDIT: See int 21h, 57xxh or 7143h

EDIT #2: For the record, I'm pretty sure FreeDOS doesn't update FAT32 time/date-stamps besides creation.

> publisher of PC Mag (Ziff Davis) deciding in the mid 90's to contact simtel > (and mirrors) and legally ask them to remove all the PC Mag utils which
> at the time were widely available.
>
> Yes, I'm aware of that, and yes it's a little silly, considering it limits
> the usefulness, but oh well, we can't have everything, can we? :-/

:) Regarding silly... from a historical viewpoint I think "no" as back then Ziff Davis were having their PC Mag programs widely illegally copied and the existence of a dedicated "PCMAG" folder on Simtel was meaning many people were thus innocently assuming they were there legitimately making the situation even worse. Still this aside as we know PCMAG's older DOS utils then disappeared off Simtel (but obviously not from the thousands of already pressed and distributed Walnut creek SIMTEL CD-ROM's....)

So I feel it is fair to defend Ziff Davis's actions from a historical standpoint, however I would say the following is silly for "now" considering many other companies have released entire compilers and other applications:

ANSI.com - February 7, 1989 (21 years ago....)


Please select a purchase option:
1) 7.97 USD (5.21GBP / 5.83EUR) single download of ANSI.com (with license!)
2) 19.97USD for access to 140+ library of utils for 1 year including ANSI.com


So perhaps TOUCH is still in PC Mag's library after all... still I'm keeping my money thanks (having purchased most of their utils the first time around!).


> Except I never thought of readonly in that way. +R usually means (to me)
> "don't modify the file data" whereas touch only changes the file's time
> (in the file system itself).
Indeed I can understand that kind of thinking even though like you my thinking is that I would support ignoring +R or at least have an option.


> Yes, that's why I did this at the top (see below).
Doh...

> BTW, GNU touch (Coreutils, formerly Fileutils, e.g. DJGPP's FIL41B.ZIP)
Interesting comparison overview - thanks.

> FreeDOS touch is written in TASM (boo hiss ...
Hey it was good in its day :)

> but I did a temporary quick hack to NASM which I will have to polish
> up if anyone cares)
Yes, publish if quick and easy to do. If anything always helpful to have more source conversions available as it helps others to learn these things.

> best touch util is probably the one in 4DOS, but not everybody uses 4DOS,
> and it's quite a big util to use just for touching files.
Haha. I never got into 4DOS to be honest or Norton Commander focusing instead on ensuring I had the skills to still do things without any extras.

> P.S. Slightly annoying that you have to use a file handle to touch a file
> instead of a pointer to ASCIIZ, but I guess "open + touch" isn't so much
> to ask.
Could be worse... FCB's

> > FreeDOS touch is written in TASM (boo hiss ...
> Hey it was good in its day :)

But not everybody has it now, and sources that only compile in TASM are a pain to translate. (Well, we have upcoming WASM 1.9, YASM's wimpy mode, some macros for NASM, NoMySo, LZASM, etc. But none work perfectly.)

> > but I did a temporary quick hack to NASM which I will have to polish
> > up if anyone cares)
> Yes, publish if quick and easy to do. If anything always helpful to have
> more source conversions available as it helps others to learn these
> things.

Tell me if you're impatient, but I may double-check the guts of it to make sure it didn't assemble something incorrectly. (NDISASM to the rescue!)

> > P.S. Slightly annoying that you have to use a file handle to
> > touch a file instead of a pointer to ASCIIZ, but I guess
> > "open + touch" isn't so much to ask.
> Could be worse... FCB's

Win9x's int 21h, 7143h accepts ASCIIZ filename instead of handle, so at least I'm not alone in thinking a name is more obvious.

P.S. Charles Dye's Touch indeed does touch readonly, the "problem" was a misunderstanding on my part. By default (with no switches) it does "nothing" (only displays some info on the screen). To actually "touch", you have to use some of the options (e.g. /D /T). This is unlike FD or DR touches, which confused me (although it was documented!!). Anyways, his touch is probably better than FD and uses NASM, but it is 9k (6k UPX'd) and requires DOS 3 (instead of DOS 2). But I still like FD touch too. It's probably one of (if not the) oldest utils contributed for FreeDOS that's still in use!

> we have upcoming WASM 1.9, YASM's wimpy mode,
> [snip], NASM, NoMySo, LZASM, etc.
Indeed, there are so many choices now... it really is pick your flavor :)

> Tell me if you're impatient,
No rush from my side particularly as I was actually thinking more of others when I made this comment. I have plenty of asm sources to look/work with here but more sources is always good :)

> sure it didn't assemble something incorrectly. (NDISASM to the rescue!)
I properly tried NDISASM for the first time yesterday and to be honest I wasn't that impressed.

> Win9x's int 21h, 7143h accepts ASCIIZ filename instead of handle, so at
> least I'm not alone in thinking a name is more obvious.
7143h - Ah yes the world of long filename interrupts. The world of older interrupts is all very different - indeed it amuses me to this day to think that parts of DOS now are still CP/M, e.g. Int 20h. SCP 86-DOS anyone? (docs). CP/M being inspired by Unix... things just go around in circles

> P.S. Charles Dye's Touch indeed does touch readonly, the "problem"
More interesting tip bits. Thx

> and requires DOS 3 (instead of DOS 2).
Supporting anything before DOS 3 is unusual. I remember years ago looking at supporting DOS 2 myself but very quickly realizing that DOS 3 brought along far too many useful/important features that it simply wasn't worth my time trying to support anything before it. That said I like providing backwards compatibility in personal projects but you have to draw the line somewhere at times. I think most folks agree would agree DOS 3 is a good line!


> But I still like FD touch too. It's
> probably one of (if not the) oldest utils contributed for FreeDOS that's
> still in use!

> > Tell me if you're impatient,
> No rush from my side particularly as I was actually thinking more of
> others when I made this comment. I have plenty of asm sources to
> look/work with here but more sources is always good :)

One issue is the macros, but that's easily fixed. I'm just not 100% sure what he's doing with memory (as he's setting up his own stack, etc), esp. dumb things like @curseg which is a MASM-y feature (and I'm unsure if $$ is a direct equivalent).

> > sure it didn't assemble something incorrectly. (NDISASM to the rescue!)
> I properly tried NDISASM for the first time yesterday and to be honest I
> wasn't that impressed.

It's nice for small projects. I probably wouldn't use it for anything big.

> indeed it amuses me to this day to think that parts of
> DOS now are still CP/M, e.g. Int 20h.

CP/M was 8-bit, hence 16-bit was a bit jump up. But yeah, DOS was meant to be somewhat "compatible", imagine that! (BTW, Tim Paterson is obviously one smart guy, see his blog.)

> > and requires DOS 3 (instead of DOS 2).
> Supporting anything before DOS 3 is unusual. I remember years ago looking
> at supporting DOS 2 myself but very quickly realizing that DOS 3 brought
> along far too many useful/important features that it simply wasn't worth
> my time trying to support anything before it. That said I like providing
> backwards compatibility in personal projects but you have to draw the line
> somewhere at times. I think most folks agree would agree DOS 3 is a good
> line!

I think DJGPP apps require DOS 3. It's not a stretch anymore. Obviously FreeDOS is freely available, so upgrading is pretty painless. I imagine that only old old machines where you can't (easily) upgrade would be the main problem, but those are rare. From what I've heard, DOS 3.3 was the most popular until 5 came around (first to have an upgrade version).

> > But I still like FD touch too. It's
> > probably one of (if not the) oldest utils contributed for FreeDOS
> that's
> > still in use!
>

He started it in 1989, which probably explains why he bothered to support DOS 2!

---
Know your limits.h

> > > sure it didn't assemble something incorrectly. (NDISASM to the
> rescue!)
> > I properly tried NDISASM for the first time yesterday and to be honest
> I wasn't that impressed.
> It's nice for small projects. I probably wouldn't use it for anything
> big.
Well from my quick tests it didn't even appear to support skipping of DOS EXE headers by default! Yes, I realize NDISASM is cross-platform. However I assume this unfortunate omission also applies to ELF files as well? Ok, so the -E option can be used to skip programs headers but obviously one needs to know where the code starts which for most people means needing other tools...

Since there are other tools that will skip headers by default then clearly this then begs the question of why bother using NDISASM to do half the job when other tools exist which can do the full job? Still I am grateful to the developers of NDISASM for it's existence, however it clearly needs more work.

> CP/M was 8-bit, hence 16-bit was a bit jump up. But yeah, DOS was meant to
> be somewhat "compatible", imagine that! (BTW, Tim Paterson is obviously one
> smart guy, see his blog.)
Indeed, thanks for this reminder of some very interesting/informative posts on the subject of DOS by the one man who obviously knows DOS better than most:

http://www.patersontech.com/dos/articles.aspx
http://dosmandrivel.blogspot.com/

> From what I've heard, DOS 3.3 was the
> most popular until 5 came around (first to have an upgrade version).
Yes, as a DOS user already at the time Version 5 came out I would agree with this. Version 5 was a big leap forward with built in help etc. I remember being jealous of a family member when they got it and I was stuck with v4.01 !

> I think DJGPP apps require DOS 3.
I strongly suspect this will be the case. Indeed with most programs (particularly EXE files) if you do a HEX search for the following byte sequence B430CD21 - the DOS version check:

mov ah, 30h
int 21h

you will usually note that most programs (due often to their run-time libraries) are checking for version 3 or above. For example the following Turbo Pascal 7 "Hello World" program does this check if compiled with the standard system run-time library:

Begin
  Writeln('Hello World', ParamStr(1));
End.

the following version check code will be generated:
B430                         mov    ah,030
CD21                         int    21
3C03                         cmp    al,003
B80000                       mov    ax,00000
7225                         jb     0000079B

whereas this very similar program doesn't include that version check:

Begin
  Writeln('Hello World!');
End.

Why the difference on such a simple program? Well as you probably know, command-line parameters are stored in the program segment prefix - unfortunately Int 21/AH=62h - GET CURRENT PSP ADDRESS was introduced in DOS version 3! Thus most compiler run-times need version 3 for example in order to support command-line parameters! Prior to that DOS call there were other ways to support command-lines but many were complex or undocumented, e.g. Int 21/AH=51h DOS 2+ internal - GET CURRENT PROCESS ID (GET PSP ADDRESS) remained "undocumented" until DOS version 5. [See also comment below re COM files]

> It's not a stretch anymore. Obviously FreeDOS is freely available,
> so upgrading is pretty painless.
> I imagine that only old old machines where you can't (easily) upgrade
> would be the main problem, but those are rare.

Yes, it depends on your hardware. I have some boxes where early versions of DOS boots from silicon and booting other OS's is NOT supported. I have code which "kills" an existing DOS session allowing one to load a bootloader etc, yes similar to LOADLIN. I haven't tried it yet but in theory I should be able to use my code to boot something like FreeDOS. It is a small feature I am planning to add into RJDOS (along with a RUN feature which has a interrupt table loader/restore feature) but currently they are 3 separate pieces of code. However I thought others would find these features useful; hence my planned inclusion into RJDOS for this very reason.

> He started it in 1989, which probably explains why he bothered to support
> DOS 2!
Check to see how he is supporting command-line parameters. I'd be interested to know. If it is a COM file, he may be doing it simply by poking straight into the PSP as the simple example in Wikipedia demonstrates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_Segment_Prefix

> > From what I've heard, DOS 3.3 was the
> > most popular until 5 came around (first to have an upgrade version).
> Yes, as a DOS user already at the time Version 5 came out I would agree
> with this. Version 5 was a big leap forward with built in help etc. I
> remember being jealous of a family member when they got it and I was stuck
> with v4.01 !

5.0 was good for EDIT (QBASIC in disguise) and LOADHIGH. However, it came later than DR-DOS, which was better at the time.

> > I think DJGPP apps require DOS 3.
> I strongly suspect this will be the case. Indeed with most programs
> (particularly EXE files) if you do a HEX search for the following byte
> sequence B430CD21 - the DOS version check:
>
> mov ah, 30h
> int 21h
>
> you will usually note that most programs (due often to their run-time
> libraries) are checking for version 3 or above.
>
> Why the difference on such a simple program?

DOS 2 was too primitive, e.g. argv[0] wasn't stored, some APIs were slightly different (e.g. country stuff, TOUCH uses int 21h,38h ... I thought NLS info wasn't present until 3.3, but apparently they had some very minimal support previously).

> Yes, it depends on your hardware. I have some boxes where early versions
> of DOS boots from silicon and booting other OS's is NOT supported.

Yeah, Poqet PC Classic probably can't be upgraded. Honestly, from the description (since I don't have one), I like the later models better due to more modern DOS (5), but proprietary / hard-to-find rechargeable batteries instead of AAs is annoying. Of course, a 386 would be better since most stuff needs it these days, but luckily I could hack a few minor things myself if needed.

> I have
> code which "kills" an existing DOS session allowing one to load a
> bootloader etc, yes similar to LOADLIN. I haven't tried it yet but in
> theory I should be able to use my code to boot something like FreeDOS.

Shouldn't be too hard considering DOSMinix and Linux (used to, 2.4) support booting atop DOS FAT.

> > He started it in 1989, which probably explains why he bothered to
> support
> > DOS 2!
> Check to see how he is supporting command-line parameters. I'd be
> interested to know. If it is a COM file, he may be doing it simply by
> poking straight into the PSP as the simple example in Wikipedia
> demonstrates:

Yeah, he's just using the standard "mov si,81h" and goes from there. (BTW, don't .EXEs have ES set to PSP at startup? So you don't need any undocumented calls, just use that.)

---
Know your limits.h

[deleted]

> [deleted]



Anyways, I've uploaded an "unofficial" FreeDOS TOUCH 1.4.4 to my site. The only changes are the -C fix to allow it to work on +R files, (somewhat sloppy) conversion of sources to NASM, and random text fixes (new FSF address, new e-mail for original author).

I'm honestly a little skeptical that this will be included in FreeDOS (as most of them are too busy), but who knows. (It's only "UTIL" anyways, not high priority.)

touch144.zip


Archive:  touch144.zip
 Length   Method    Size  Cmpr    Date    Time   CRC-32   Name
--------  ------  ------- ---- ---------- ----- --------  ----
   18431  Defl:X     6678  64% 03/31/2010 01:44 a6d3a2f5  COPYING
    1216  Defl:X      684  44% 03/31/2010 01:44 66761e68  fix143.bat
    1460  Defl:X      690  53% 03/31/2010 01:44 f17df33e  gzipdate.rex
   13846  Defl:X     3943  72% 03/31/2010 01:44 60fdf1c8  qualpath.asm
   56935  Defl:X    13642  76% 04/06/2010 01:44 f0b9267b  touch.asm
    2661  Defl:X     2023  24% 04/06/2010 01:44 9c70b378  touch.com
    3346  Defl:X     1153  66% 04/06/2010 01:44 4d99e88f  touch.ien
     496  Defl:X      336  32% 04/06/2010 01:44 9b42074e  touch.lsm
   14162  Defl:X     4076  71% 03/31/2010 01:44 66b3e890  touch.nls
   14690  Defl:X     4858  67% 04/06/2010 01:44 918d9bfc  touch.txt
     307  Defl:X      161  48% 04/06/2010 01:44 ce982705  touchmak.bat
--------          -------  ---                            -------
  127550            38244  70%                            11 files


---
Know your limits.h

> if option = '-t' then do
> 'dir' filename
> 'touch' newdate filename
> 'dir' filename
> end

BTW, just a small tip:

For some reason, when 4DOS is the primary shell, the DJGPP compile of BRexx (but not the 16-bit BC compile) will execute touch.com (or touch.exe) instead of its internal "touch". The only easy workaround I know of (that worked in 16-bit BRexx too, IIRC) was to use 'touch.' [sic] instead.

Just FYI.