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I hate to nitpick, but from the man page of touch:

> touch -- change file access and modification times

If one were to argue side effects of touch, it would be that non-existent files are created. The purpose of touch is to update access and modification times.

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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_scienc...

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