chraebsli@programming.dev to Programmer Humor@programming.dev · 1 year agoTouch a file in Linuxprogramming.devimagemessage-square85fedilinkarrow-up1384
arrow-up1384imageTouch a file in Linuxprogramming.devchraebsli@programming.dev to Programmer Humor@programming.dev · 1 year agomessage-square85fedilink
minus-square48954246@lemmy.worldlinkfedilinkEnglisharrow-up1·edit-21 year agoFeels dangerous to run. What happens if the file already exists and has something important in it? touch -a is probably better
minus-squaregaterush@lemmy.worldlinkfedilinkarrow-up2·1 year agoThe other command could just be printf '' >> file to not overwrite it. Or even simpler >>file and then interrupt
minus-squareowsei@programming.devlinkfedilinkarrow-up2·1 year agoor :>>file then you don’t need to interrupt
minus-squaregaterush@lemmy.worldlinkfedilinkarrow-up1·1 year agothat’s awesome, did not know about that handy operator!
minus-squareowsei@programming.devlinkfedilinkarrow-up1·1 year agoYeah! it’s basically a noop, I use it as a placeholder when I’m writing a script, since bash doesn’t accept code blocks with no commands
minus-square4am@lemm.eelinkfedilinkarrow-up1·1 year ago.“:>>” is “append null” right? Do you get a file with a single ASCII NUL or is it truly empty?
minus-squareTrailblazing Braille Taser@lemmy.dbzer0.comlinkfedilinkarrow-up5·1 year agoNot really. I believe : is the “true” builtin. So it’s like running a program that exits with zero and writes nothing to stdout. The >> streams the empty stdout into the named file.
I guess printf “” > file
Feels dangerous to run. What happens if the file already exists and has something important in it?
touch -ais probably betterThe other command could just be
printf '' >> fileto not overwrite it. Or even simpler>>fileand then interruptor
:>>filethen you don’t need to interruptthat’s awesome, did not know about that handy operator!
Yeah!
it’s basically a noop, I use it as a placeholder when I’m writing a script, since bash doesn’t accept code blocks with no commands
.“:>>” is “append null” right? Do you get a file with a single ASCII NUL or is it truly empty?
Not really. I believe : is the “true” builtin. So it’s like running a program that exits with zero and writes nothing to stdout. The >> streams the empty stdout into the named file.