How to: Create Files in Linux from a Bash Shell Prompt

by nixCraft on October 16, 2007 · 35 comments· LAST UPDATED October 16, 2007

Q. I'm new to Linux and installed CentOS on my Laptop. How do I create a file from bash prompt without using GUI tools?

A. Linux / UNIX offer many command line tools and text editors for creating text files. You can use vi or JOE text editor. It is a terminal-based text editor for Linux/Unix systems, available under the GPL. It is designed to be easy to use.

Create a Text File using cat command

To create a text file called foo.txt, enter:
$ cat > foo.txt
Output:

This is a test.
Hello world!
press CTRL+D to save file

To display file contents, type
$ cat foot.txt

Create a Text File using joe text editor

JOE is text editor. To create a file called foo.txt, type:
$ joe -help foo.txt
You will see help menu on screen. Next type something. To save the file and leave joe, by typing ^KX (press CTRL+K+X).

Create a Text File using vi / vim text editor

vi / vim is another text editor. To create a file called bar.txt, type:
$ vi bar.txt
Press 'i' to insert new text. To save the file and leave vi, type ESC+:+x (press ESC key, type : followed by x and [enter] key).

Further readings

Learn more about joe here : Introduction to the Joe Text Editor
Learn more about vi here : Download mastering the VI editor pdf version.

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{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Pafcio October 18, 2007 at 9:58 am

You can also use touch command to create empty files:
touch foobar.txt

2 vivek October 18, 2007 at 8:09 pm

Pafcio,

thanks for pointing out touch command!

3 Mohan October 18, 2007 at 11:46 pm

echo ‘ This is a multiline

text file created

from the bash shell

using echo command’ > multiline.txt

4 shankar August 26, 2011 at 9:39 am

i want create a text file. pls could you help me…

5 maxwell September 22, 2011 at 2:24 pm: $ cat foot.txt
Reply

6 ganni October 29, 2007 at 8:30 am

Thanks a lot! It helps me.

Thank you very much! all of you

7 Kaka November 16, 2007 at 5:42 pm

Excellent, cause I just used it at work, and it worked and helped me.

Thanks

8 Nitish December 4, 2007 at 3:48 pm

Detailed information but would appreciate if someone can upload the solution for cat command as in executing or running the vi program. I am writing a finction in the vi and want to execute it outside the vi on the bash shell.

Thx- Nitish Anand

9 amit nehra December 6, 2007 at 2:12 am

thanks guys. i do try cat, it works perfectly.
but in vi mode i’m not able to save & exit the file. i had to exit using ctrl+z & the file was not saved.
please help me. mail on nehra13@gmail.com

10 Nitish Anand December 23, 2007 at 12:36 pm

Have u tried using:-

!wq for save and exit VI
!w to just exit.

11 chakjoy February 24, 2008 at 3:35 am

have two files, ‘file1′ and ‘file2′.
file1 has:
1234
4567
6789

file2 has:
abcd
efgh
ijkl

would like to combine into one like:
1234 | abcd
4567 | efgh
6789 | ijkl

Please give direction.

Thanks

12 musteah October 5, 2010 at 1:19 pm: Hi,
@chakjoy
here is an solution. Using arrays:
—
#!/bin/bash
declare -a ARRAY1
declare -a ARRAY2
let count=0
let count1=0
while read LINE
do
ARRAY1[$count]=$LINE
((count++))
done < file1.txt
while read LINE
do
ARRAY2[$count1]=$LINE
((count1++))
done < file2.txt
for((i=0; i<${#ARRAY1[@]};i++));do
echo "${ARRAY1[${i}]} | ${ARRAY2[${i}]}"
done
—
I hope this help.
Reply

13 Nitish Anand March 27, 2008 at 12:07 pm

Hi chakjoy,

Did u manage to resolve your problem? Try the folling link if thats what you meant:-

http://www.linuxsa.org.au/tips/command-pipelines.html

cd /var/log && ls -al
this switches to the /var/log directory if the directory change was sucessfuly it will then list the contents of that directory.

You can also list the contents of a directory without leaving your current location..

ls -al /var/log
Would list the contents of /var/log no matter your current location in the directory tree.

You can also use | to send the output of one command to the input of another..

mount | column -t
Show mount points in a column format

ls -al | grep *.jpg
List the contents of a directory buit only show files ending in .jpg

ps aux | grep X11
List processes but only show processes containing X11 > and list.txt
Will list the contents of the /var/log directory and save it in the file list.txt

hope this helps

====================

You can chain copmmands together using &&

cd /var/log && ls -al
this swithces to the /var/log directory if the directory change was sucessfuly it will then list the contents o fhte directory.

just to add to that, you can likewise chain commands together with the || operator (OR operator, not to be confused with a pipe | )

Code:
$ cd /mnt || cd /varthis would attempt to change to the /mnt directory. If it could not it would then switch to the /var directory. If the cd /mnt command was successfull then it would stop. Similarly,

Code:
$ cd /blah || cd /homeit’s probably safe to say there is no /blah directory on your computer so typing this command would attempt to change to a non-existant directory, fail, and consequently change to /home
have fun!

14 Jaime June 10, 2008 at 6:21 am

There is so much to learn when you get inside of linux, for example, VI is not the easier text editor but it rocks xD

15 jakemanse June 16, 2009 at 7:25 am

That’s good I am new Linuxer , now I am studying it .
Thanks.

16 Mithat Perkoz September 3, 2009 at 2:16 pm

Thx a lot guys.
I am also a newbie to Linux and it helps a lot!

17 pratheesh November 10, 2009 at 12:36 pm

how to chkdsk in linux cmd mode

18 pratheesh November 10, 2009 at 12:39 pm

how to check in all disk drive in linux command mode

19 pratheesh November 10, 2009 at 12:41 pm

how to install other software in linux command mode

20 srividya July 1, 2010 at 4:56 am

please i am not able to understand to do program with echo command. please tell mr steps from starting….

21 srividya July 1, 2010 at 4:58 am

how to save lines in a file? how to execute ?

22 srividya July 1, 2010 at 5:00 am

how to save lines in a file at unix? how to execute?

23 Vidar 75 August 1, 2010 at 8:25 pm

Just $ > filename will do the same, manily creating a empty file named “filename”

Go ahead type “> test” and see for your self

24 Suresh August 11, 2010 at 4:40 pm

What is the main difference between touch & vi commnd?

25 vr4sk December 7, 2010 at 9:58 am

Could someone help me understand what this means?

Save the information that you have read from the keyboard into a file

26 superking February 23, 2011 at 8:37 am

good job !!!

27 vijay March 21, 2011 at 6:33 am

how to search the empty file in linux …
For that which command use ???
please tell me …. help me …..

28 siddharth December 5, 2011 at 4:54 pm

hi guyz,

mu /dev/hdc had 2.7 G and its now 100%. Need to clear it.

Please help.

29 Phearret June 10, 2012 at 12:41 am

I am trying to maintain a list of “ROMS” be it NDS, or MAME, no matter.
Instead of accessing each page on a website, is it possible to use cat to look for say; title” … ” within .aspx on the website and copy it to local txt file ? I have been using ..
cat wordlist/* | tr -cs A-Za-z ’12′ | tr A-Z a-z | sort | uniq > wordlist/masterlist.txt to merge numerous txt files into one, have them sort, and no repeats. something like this to be able to input the website start & end page and where to save the roms list.. there doesn’t really seem to be any 1 site that has a complete & accurate list. I an not trying to circumvent anything to get to the roms, I merely wish to be able to goto a webpage, enter in the variables, run a script to gather the list from the site, then after I have done this to a few sites run the above quoted, to merge the different sites into 1 ( hopefully ) accurate list so I know the names & numbers of the roms for each list.

30 LAsitha June 14, 2012 at 4:10 pm