Quickest way to change the last modified date on a textfile.

[mdhutchinson]

I know I can re-write the file... but is there a more elegent way to change the file date?

[owenwengerd]

I don't think you have to write anything. Just open it for append, then immediately close it again.

[mdhutchinson]

(close (open MyFile "a"))... then shouldn't this do it?  For some reason it does not.

[owenwengerd]

In that case I would simply append something that can be easily filtered out when reading, such as a line feed.

[Gary_J_Orr · Accepted solution]

Try this:

copy the file to a new file (on my system doing so puts the current date-time to the property on the new file)

Delete the original

rename the new file to the original

(setq Filename "E:\\RandD\\filesystem.txt")
(setq tempFileName (strcat Filename "2"))
(vl-file-copy Filename tempFileName)
(vl-file-delete Filename)
(vl-file-rename tempFileName Filename)

-Gary