Create a file using the touch command in Mac or Unix-like OS
problem
You are playing with something cool on your machine and all of the sudden you wish to create an empty file for testing purposes. For example, a classic case, a text file that will be manipulated by a program.
SOLUTION
Using the touch command in the terminal. In order to create a test.txt file we type the following:
touch test.txt
This simple command will create a test.txt at the current directory as shown in the screenshot below:
It’s important to see that the file has Zero bytes; an empty file that we needed.
The file extension might not even be needed but it depends on your case. It makes no real difference in this case.
Specifying the path
If we need the file only for a temporary amount of time we can add it to the temporary directory of the OS (tmp).
We can do so by running the following command:
touch /tmp/test.txt
This will create an empty file test.txt in the temporary directory as shown in the screenshot below:
/tmp directory is emptied automatically by the OS on reboot and also periodically (depends on OS).
CREATE MULTIPLE EMPTY FILE AT ONCE
To create more than one file we can simply specify their respective file names separated by space. For example, to create 3 files we can do the following:
touch one.txt two.txt three.txt
OUtput
Directory listing – Before
Directory listing – After
FILE EXISTS
If we re-run the command and the file already exists, it will be re-created and replace the old one. No way to avoid this.
more functionality
touch command offers more functionalities than simply creating a file.
It can be used to amend file access and modification times.
For more information on the arguments it accepts, we can check the official manual:
man touch
conclusion
In this post we saw how to use the touch command that comes out of the box in the terminal of any MAC or Unix-like OS.
References:
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Ellion
Professional IT consultant, writer, programmer enthusiast interested in all sorts of coding.
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