A quick way to create a blank text file

27th June 2008

The primary job done by the touch command in UNIX or Linux is to update the time stamps on files. However, it also has another function: creating an empty text file where you are "touching" a file that doesn’t exist. This has its uses, particularly when you want to reduce the amount of pointing and clicking that you need to do or you want to generate a series of empty files in a shell script. Whatever you do with it is up to you.

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A quick way to create a blank text file

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