7 Ways to Create a File in Linux Terminal

Ahmed Abdalhamid 2018-09-11 Channel: Linux

Abstract: we will use cat command to open it. $ cat printf.txt outputwe will use cat command to open it. $ cat echo.txt output

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In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a file from a Linux terminal. There are many text editors like (vim, nano, vi) and many commands like (cat, echo, printf, touch) to create a file in the Linux operating system via command line. Here will explain the following linux tools.

Touch command
Cat command
Echo command
Printf command
Nano text editor
Vi text editor
Vim text editor

1) Create a file with touch command

We will use touch command with any extension to create file, this command will create an empty file touch.txt in your current directory as an example below.

$ sudo touch touch.txt

$ sudo touch touch.docx

To see the file type command below.

$ ls -l

output
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root       0 Sep  4 08:08 touch.docx
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root       0 Sep  4 08:06 touch.txt

2) Create a file with cat command

We will use cat command to create file, this command will create an empty file cat.txt in your current directory as an example below, but you must add text in the file.

$ cat > cat.txt

Add the text below.

This file has been created with cat command

To save the file hit Ctrl + d, and to see the file type command below.

$ ls -l cat.txt

output
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root       0 Sep  4 08:06 cat.txt

To open the file, we will use cat command to open it.

$ cat cat.txt

output
This file has been created with echo command

3) Create a file with echo command

We will use echo command to create file, this command will create a file echo.txt in your current directory as an example below, but you should add text in the line command.

$ echo "This file has been created with echo command" > echo.txt

To see the file,type command below.

$ ls -l echo.txt

output
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root       0 Sep  4 08:06 echo.txt

To open the file, we will use cat command to open it.

$ cat echo.txt

output
This file has been created with echo command

4) Create a file with printf command

We will use printf command to create file, this command will create a file printf.txt in your current directory as an example below, but you should add text in the line command.

$ printf "This file has been created with printf command" > printf.txt

To see the file type command below.

$ ls -l printf.txt

output
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root       0 Sep  4 08:06 printf.txt

To open the file, we will use cat command to open it.

$ cat printf.txt

output
This file has been created with printf command

5) Create a file with nano text editor

To create a file using nano text editor, first install it, after that type command below and the text editor will be opened to adding text.

$ nano nano.txt

Add the text below.

This file has been created with nano text editor

To save the file type Ctrl + x and type y, to see the file type command below.

$ ls -l nano.txt

output
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root       0 Sep  4 08:06 nano.txt

To open the file, We will use nano command to open it.

$ nano nano.txt

output
This file has been created with nano command

6) Create a file with vi text editor

To create a file using vi text editor, type command below and the text editor will open the file, but you can't add any text before converting it to insert mode by typing i character.

$ vi vi.txt

Add the text below.

This file has been created with vi text editor

To save the file and exit hit Esc after that :wq, To see the file type command below.

$ ls -l vi.txt

output
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root       0 Sep  4 08:06 vi.txt

To open the file, we will use vi command to open it.

$ vi vi.txt

output
This file has been created with vi command

7) Create a file with vim text editor

To create a file using vim text editor, type command below and the text editor will open the file, but you can't add any text before converting it to insert mode by typing i character.

$ vim vim.txt

Add the text below.

This file has been created with vim text editor

To save the file and exit hit Esc after that :wq, to see the file type command below.

$ ls -l vim.txt

output
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root       0 Sep  4 08:06 vim.txt

To open the file, we will use vim command to open it.

$ vim vim.txt

output
This file has been created with vim command

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned the different ways to create a file from Linux terminal. Hope you enjoyed reading and please leave your comments in the below comment section.