Unix: Visual QuickStart Guide

Creating files with touch

Another skill you'll use frequently is creating files. You might think of creating files as getting an empty bucket that you can later fill with water...or sand...or rocks...or whatever. When you create a file, you designate an empty space that you can fill with programs, activity logs, your resume, or configurations—practically anything you want, or nothing at all.

Of course, you can always create a file by writing something in an editor and saving it, as described in Chapter 4, but you will likely encounter situations where you just need an empty file. You create empty files using the touch command, as shown in Code Listing 2.2.

To create a file:

1.	touch file.to.create To create a file, type touch followed by the ...