Comments on: How to empty or clear the contents of an existing UNIX file

By: Lakshmanan Samy

Lakshmanan Samy — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 11:34:50 +0000

Thanks these are all helpful

Sandeep D. — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:51:00 +0000

Thansk. This is the best way to clear the contents of a file
UNIX PROMPT> :> [file name]

Duncan Anderson — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 19:07:00 +0000

:> filename

Has always been my choice, especially in shell scripts.

Vinothkumar Sundaram — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 12:23:00 +0000

Sorry it is working

Geo — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 11:24:00 +0000

# touch test
# cat test > blah.txt

this commands will empty the file blah.txt

Guest — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 05:14:00 +0000

: > blah.txt

Marty69 — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:17:00 +0000

I’m a newbee at this so i assume if u pip this into the temp folder u will get the same results?

DINESH — Mon, 24 May 2010 04:08:00 +0000

echo -n > blah.txt

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:32:00 +0000

Nothing just cat the file with echo ” ” as mentioned below to empty the file.

Include this command in the script will get all the details in it washed away

echo ” ” | cat >

Ex : echo ” ” | cat > temp

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:56:00 +0000

Important to note- the ‘> filename’ method will only work on sh, and ksh variants but not csh.

–Dennis