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1

I'm pretty new the Linux in general so I'm not too familiar with do's and don'ts or some commands.

I wanted to create a file and noticed that:

touch file.txt `

creates a file but so does:

echo >> file.txt

and also

> file.txt

The files created with ">" and "touch" are both 0 bytes but the file created with "echo" is 1 byte

why are the files different sizes and whats the best way to create a file? when should someone create a file with "echo" instead of "touch" or ">"?

linux ubuntu files echo touch

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asked 1 hour ago

Alex ValdezAlex Valdez

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1

I'm pretty new the Linux in general so I'm not too familiar with do's and don'ts or some commands.

I wanted to create a file and noticed that:

touch file.txt `

creates a file but so does:

echo >> file.txt

and also

> file.txt

The files created with ">" and "touch" are both 0 bytes but the file created with "echo" is 1 byte

why are the files different sizes and whats the best way to create a file? when should someone create a file with "echo" instead of "touch" or ">"?

linux ubuntu files echo touch

share|improve this question

asked 1 hour ago

Alex ValdezAlex Valdez

611 bronze badge

New contributor

Alex Valdez is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

add a comment | 

I'm pretty new the Linux in general so I'm not too familiar with do's and don'ts or some commands.

I wanted to create a file and noticed that:

touch file.txt `

creates a file but so does:

echo >> file.txt

and also

> file.txt

The files created with ">" and "touch" are both 0 bytes but the file created with "echo" is 1 byte

why are the files different sizes and whats the best way to create a file? when should someone create a file with "echo" instead of "touch" or ">"?

linux ubuntu files echo touch

share|improve this question

asked 1 hour ago

Alex ValdezAlex Valdez

611 bronze badge

New contributor

Alex Valdez is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

touch file.txt `

echo >> file.txt

> file.txt

share|improve this question

asked 1 hour ago

Alex ValdezAlex Valdez

611 bronze badge

New contributor

Alex Valdez is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

share|improve this question

asked 1 hour ago

Alex ValdezAlex Valdez

611 bronze badge

New contributor

Alex Valdez is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

asked 1 hour ago

Alex ValdezAlex Valdez

611 bronze badge

New contributor

Alex Valdez is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

asked 1 hour ago

Alex ValdezAlex Valdez

611 bronze badge

1 Answer
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1

For the general question about creating files, see: Why isn't there any shell command to create files?

---

With both > file and echo >> file, the shell creates the file if it didn't already exist.

With > file, the file is truncated if it already existed. No command was specified, so nothing gets written to the file and the file will be empty.

echo, without any arguments, prints an empty line. So the output contains the line ending character, typically linefeed (LF, n):

% echo | od -c

0000000  n

0000001

So with echo >> file, you get one byte written to the file. If the file already existed, then it would have one byte added to it, because you used >> (append) instead of > (overwrite).

touch creates a file if it didn't already exist, and updates the timestamps on it otherwise. touch doesn't change the contents of the file, so if it already existed and had some contents in it, the contents would remain the same after touch.

Which you want to use depends on what effect you want.

share|improve this answer

answered 59 mins ago

murumuru

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1

For the general question about creating files, see: Why isn't there any shell command to create files?

---

With both > file and echo >> file, the shell creates the file if it didn't already exist.

With > file, the file is truncated if it already existed. No command was specified, so nothing gets written to the file and the file will be empty.

echo, without any arguments, prints an empty line. So the output contains the line ending character, typically linefeed (LF, n):

% echo | od -c

0000000  n

0000001

So with echo >> file, you get one byte written to the file. If the file already existed, then it would have one byte added to it, because you used >> (append) instead of > (overwrite).

touch creates a file if it didn't already exist, and updates the timestamps on it otherwise. touch doesn't change the contents of the file, so if it already existed and had some contents in it, the contents would remain the same after touch.

Which you want to use depends on what effect you want.

share|improve this answer

answered 59 mins ago

murumuru

41.7k55 gold badges101101 silver badges175175 bronze badges

add a comment | 

1

For the general question about creating files, see: Why isn't there any shell command to create files?

---

With both > file and echo >> file, the shell creates the file if it didn't already exist.

With > file, the file is truncated if it already existed. No command was specified, so nothing gets written to the file and the file will be empty.

echo, without any arguments, prints an empty line. So the output contains the line ending character, typically linefeed (LF, n):

% echo | od -c

0000000  n

0000001

So with echo >> file, you get one byte written to the file. If the file already existed, then it would have one byte added to it, because you used >> (append) instead of > (overwrite).

touch creates a file if it didn't already exist, and updates the timestamps on it otherwise. touch doesn't change the contents of the file, so if it already existed and had some contents in it, the contents would remain the same after touch.

Which you want to use depends on what effect you want.

share|improve this answer

answered 59 mins ago

murumuru

41.7k55 gold badges101101 silver badges175175 bronze badges

add a comment | 

For the general question about creating files, see: Why isn't there any shell command to create files?

---

With both > file and echo >> file, the shell creates the file if it didn't already exist.

With > file, the file is truncated if it already existed. No command was specified, so nothing gets written to the file and the file will be empty.

echo, without any arguments, prints an empty line. So the output contains the line ending character, typically linefeed (LF, n):

% echo | od -c

0000000  n

0000001

So with echo >> file, you get one byte written to the file. If the file already existed, then it would have one byte added to it, because you used >> (append) instead of > (overwrite).

touch creates a file if it didn't already exist, and updates the timestamps on it otherwise. touch doesn't change the contents of the file, so if it already existed and had some contents in it, the contents would remain the same after touch.

Which you want to use depends on what effect you want.

share|improve this answer

answered 59 mins ago

murumuru

41.7k55 gold badges101101 silver badges175175 bronze badges

% echo | od -c

0000000  n

0000001

share|improve this answer

answered 59 mins ago

murumuru

41.7k55 gold badges101101 silver badges175175 bronze badges

answered 59 mins ago

murumuru

41.7k55 gold badges101101 silver badges175175 bronze badges

answered 59 mins ago

murumuru

41.7k55 gold badges101101 silver badges175175 bronze badges