Is there a better way to create a file in bash other than using touch and echo?

Question

I created a bash script that installed some applications and wrote a .conf file. I wanted my bash script to create the file for me so I could just run the file and it set it all up. was there a better way of going about it than this or did I do it in the best way possible. just wondering what other options I had.

Note: the file does work

if [ ! -e ~/.conf/file/path ]; then
   touch ~/.conf/file/path
   echo "
    long
    conf
    list
    here
    ..." >> ~/.conf/file/path
fi

See Create , Write and Save file from a Shell script – steeldriver Oct 18 '17 at 19:42 — steeldriver, Oct 18 '17 at 19:42

score 7 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 18 '17 at 19:31

7

Just do echo "text" >> /path/to/file if the file doesn't exist.

The lovely thing about text redirection and appending is that if your output is a file path, and the file doesn't already exist, it'll create the file, regardless of if > or >> is used. No need to touch the file at all, typically. (Though, if you are sure the file does not exist, just use > instead of >>; >> is to append to a file, but if the file doesn't exist, well...)

answered Oct 18 '17 at 19:31

Thomas Ward

74,764

Ok thanks for your input. I will keep that in mind – Jermayne Williams Oct 18 '17 at 20:06
1

Better, IMO, use a HERE Document - https://bash.cyberciti.biz/guide/Here_documents – Panther Oct 19 '17 at 05:18

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 03 '22 at 23:25

As far as your script goes, you can use > redirection to file. You're asking if the file doesn't exist (which should better be expressed as if ! [ -e ~/.conf/file/path ];), therefore there is no need to use append operator in this particular case (even though it works alright).

As for printing long multiline configuration into the file, Panther already hinted at use of here docs in his comment under Thomas's answer. This is a frequent technique I personally use for writing "help message" or options information in my scripts

You could easily do something like this:

bash-4.3$ cat <<EOF > out.txt
parameter1="value 1"
parameter2="value 2"
EOF
bash-4.3$ cat out.txt
parameter1="value 1"
parameter2="value 2"
bash-4.3$

Or alternatively create a specific function, write_config() to make your script more idiomatic, so to speak:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# note usage of $HOME variable instead of ~
my_config="$HOME/my_conf_file.txt"
# declare all functions at the top
config_exists()[[ -e "$my_config" ]]
write_config(){
    cat > "$my_config" <<EOF
parameter1="value 1"
parameter2="varlue 2"
EOF
}
if ! config_exists;
then
    echo "config doesn't exist"
    write_config
fi

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 03 '17 at 00:32

If the "long conf list" is so long that it impedes the readability of your shell script, why not just place it into a separate file that accompanies the script? Then all your need to do in the shell script is copy that file to the destination.

if [ ! -e ~/.conf/file/path ]; then
   cp /path/to/mytemplate ~/.conf/file/path
fi

Is there a better way to create a file in bash other than using touch and echo?

3 Answers3