The fastest way to create a file from a terminal

Question

What is the simplest way to create a file using a command-line? Usually I use:

touch filename

But is this the simplest/fastest way?

Answer 1

This will save you five keypresses relative to touch filename

>filename

but is not the equivalent of touch as it will truncate filename if it exists. The following does what you want

>>filename

but note that it is not equivalent to touch either, as it does not update filename's modification timestamp.