[SOLVED] "touch" do not make content in file

ostene · 01-25-2016, 05:40 AM

Hello,

This command is from a site and should fill library with 100
files with the number "i" in every file.

for i in `seq 1 100`;do touch /home/myname/tmp/foo/file$i;done

It gives the files but every file is empty.
Sorry I can not see what is wrong.

Scientific Linux 7.1 64-bit, KDE desktop,

Thanks ostene

Soadyheid · 01-25-2016, 06:15 AM

Code:

$ touch <filename>

is used to create an empty file called <filename> so your command is doing exactly what you're asking it to do.

Play Bonny!

Guttorm · 01-25-2016, 06:23 AM

To put the number into the file, you could do it like this:

Code:

for i in `seq 1 100`;do echo $i > /home/myname/tmp/foo/file$i ;done

huffdad · 01-25-2016, 07:04 AM

"touch" only makes sure that a file exists. If it does exist, then touch does not change the file. If the file does not exist, then touch creates the file, but does not add anything to it.

Beryllos · 01-26-2016, 04:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by huffdad

"touch" only makes sure that a file exists. If it does exist, then touch does not change the file. If the file does not exist, then touch creates the file, but does not add anything to it.

Actually touch updates the time stamp of an existing file.

Example:

Code:

$ ls -al myfile
-rw-r--r-- 1 beryllos beryllos 1476 Oct  1  2014 myfile
$ touch myfile
$ ls -al myfile
-rw-r--r-- 1 beryllos beryllos 1476 Jan 26 17:27 myfile

Find out more in the manual here.

or here:

Code:

$ man touch

huffdad · 01-26-2016, 06:04 PM

Ah, thanks for that. That's a detail I've never needed before. Will keep it in mind for future reference. Thanks for the correction. I don't like giving false info.