can1357/oh-my-pi · error · TouchError

Unable to parse date: {0}

Error message

Unable to parse date: {0}

What it means

This touch builtin error (crates/pi-builtins/src/touch.rs, InvalidDateFormat) means the date string supplied with -d/--date could not be parsed. Touch accepts a limited set of human date formats (matching GNU touch); the raw string is echoed back in the message. It is a pure argument-validation error raised before any file is touched.

Source

Thrown at crates/pi-builtins/src/touch.rs:41

use jiff::{Timestamp, ToSpan, Zoned, civil::Time, fmt::strtime, tz::TimeZone};
#[cfg(unix)]
use libc::O_NONBLOCK;
#[cfg(unix)]
use rustix::fs::Timestamps;
#[cfg(unix)]
use rustix::fs::futimens;
#[cfg(target_os = "linux")]
use uucore::libc;
use uucore::{display::Quotable, parser::shortcut_value_parser::ShortcutValueParser};

use brush_core::{ShellExtensions, builtins::Registration};
use thiserror::Error as ThisError;

use crate::host::{Host, Utility, format_usage, matches_parser, util};

#[derive(Debug, ThisError)]
enum TouchError {
	#[error("Unable to parse date: {0}")]
	InvalidDateFormat(String),
	#[error("Source has invalid access or modification time: {0}")]
	InvalidFiletime(FileTime),
	#[error("failed to get attributes of {}: {}", .0.quote(), io_error(.1))]
	ReferenceFileInaccessible(PathBuf, std::io::Error),
	#[cfg(windows)]
	#[error("GetFinalPathNameByHandleW failed with code {0}")]
	WindowsStdoutPathError(String),
	#[error("{0}")]
	Message(String),
}

fn io_error(error: &std::io::Error) -> String {
	if error.raw_os_error().is_some() {
		match error.kind() {
			ErrorKind::NotFound => "No such file or directory".into(),
			ErrorKind::PermissionDenied => "Permission denied".into(),
			ErrorKind::AlreadyExists => "Already exists".into(),

View on GitHub (pinned to 9690622007)

Solutions

1. Use an ISO 8601 timestamp: `touch -d '2026-08-30 12:00:00' file`.
2. Feed dates through `date -I` / `date --iso-8601` when generating the value in scripts.
3. Validate/normalize the date variable before invoking touch (non-empty, ISO order YYYY-MM-DD).
4. If you meant 'now', omit -d entirely or use `touch -d now file`.

Example fix

// before
touch -d '31/12/2026' stamp.txt  // Unable to parse date: 31/12/2026

// after
touch -d '2026-12-31 00:00:00' stamp.txt

function isIsoDate(s) {
  return typeof s === 'string' && /^\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}([ T]\d{2}:\d{2}(:\d{2})?)?$/.test(s) && !Number.isNaN(Date.parse(s.replace(' ', 'T')));
}

try {
  await touch.run(['-d', dateStr, file]);
} catch (err) {
  if (String(err).startsWith('Unable to parse date:')) {
    console.error(`normalize '${dateStr}' to ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS)`);
  } else throw err;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running touch with an unparsable --date value, e.g. `touch -d 'not a date' f`, locale-dependent formats like `touch -d '31/12/2026'` (day-first is not supported), or missing time components.

Common situations: Scripts generating dates with `date`-specific formats touch doesn't accept; regional date orders (DD/MM/YYYY); empty variables expanding to `touch -d ''`; porting from systems whose touch has a different date grammar.

Understand the failure class

• Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

• invalid date: {value}
• date is out of range
• dates before 1970 are unsupported
• err.to_string() (timestamp parse error)
• duration is too large: {value}

AI-assisted analysis of can1357/oh-my-pi@9690622007 (2026-08-31). Data as JSON: /api/errors/22f7d81b34931b31. Report an issue: GitHub.