Creating empty files from Linux command line

There are many ways to create an empty text file from command line. This post shows 3 ways.

To create empty file from Linux command line, you can use one of the following methods:
1. touch filename
2. vi filename and close file
3. echo > filename

touch is a tool that comes packaged with Linux. It is often used to check if you have permissions to a certain file or directory. It can also be used to create a file. Suppose you want to create a file called events.txt:

touch events.txt

That’s it. If you have permissions to create a file in that location, an empty events.txt is created.

vi editor can also be used to create events.txt as follows:

$ vi newfile

If you have permissions to create a file in that location, an empty events.txt is created.Then press Esc key followed by :wq. and an empty file would be created.

echo can be used to create events.txt as follows:

$ echo > newfile.txt