How to create a file in Linux from terminal window?

raffian picture raffian · Feb 21, 2012 · Viewed 1.7M times · Source

What's the easiest way to create a file in Linux terminal?

Answer

Eugen Rieck picture Eugen Rieck · Feb 21, 2012

Depending on what you want the file to contain:

  • touch /path/to/file for an empty file
  • somecommand > /path/to/file for a file containing the output of some command.

      eg: grep --help > randomtext.txt
          echo "This is some text" > randomtext.txt
    
  • nano /path/to/file or vi /path/to/file (or any other editor emacs,gedit etc)
    It either opens the existing one for editing or creates & opens the empty file to enter, if it doesn't exist