Today I was googling to the effect of discovering how to change the modification date of some files without having to use the "touch" command on each individual file and without having to write a PERL script or something else in order to get this done.
It turns out it's another case of the "find" command to the rescue. It's interesting to me how often I think a basic command like "ls" or "touch" should have (and probably does have) a certain capability built-in, but the "find" command makes it easier and saves me from having to learn every single feature of every single command.
In this case, the command used to perform a simple "touch" on all files in the current folder and in all sub-folders, recursively, was this:
find . -exec touch {} \;
Looking at this, I can see that the word "find" and the period has a simple and familiar effect of listing all files etc. in the present working directory* and also files in the subdirectories thereof.
Apparently the -exec option specifies that a command should be run on each file in the list, instead of the default action of "find" which is simply listing the files, or printing the files' names to the console output.
The word "touch" in that command line is the command to be used on the files, and the curly brackets "{}" would seem to indicate where each file's name/path would be placed on the hypothetical command line relative to the command itself. In this case "touch {};" would be the simple command, if we replace "{}" with the files' names or paths.
The "\;" or "escaped backslash" is a bit more liable to confuse, but I think I understand why it's escaped. If it were not escaped, it would mark the end of the "find" command, not only the "touch" command. Since it is indeed escaped, the "find" command could have more options or operators trailing it. It is only marking the end of the -exec option's parameters, this way.
I'll go ahead and give credit where it's due, I found this information at the following page: http://www.unix.com/unix-for-dummies-questions-and-answers/108598-touch-all-files-subdirectories-recursive-touch.html
* Most of you will know this already: "pwd" is another neat command, especially useful when your command prompt isn't telling you what your "present working directory" is.
