I think you're misunderstanding the way the term side effect is being used in this context. A side effect can refer to any impacts on a system that happen outsi

I think you're misunderstanding the way the term side effect is being used in this context. A side effect can refer to any impacts on a system that happen outside of the scope of the code itself. In this case, the primary intended effect of "touch" is to initiate the side effect of modifying file access and modification times. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side_effect_(computer_science) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side_effect_(computer_scienc...