Practical Linux

Creating Files and Directories

Creating files and directories is an integral part of organizing your data while using Linux. The following sections show you how to create files and directories, so you can later copy, move, and organize your information.

Using touch to Create and Update Files and Directories

The touch command is used to create or update files and directories. Use touch with a new filename to create a file, or use an existing filename to update the file's access and modification times. For example, the following command line uses touch to create three files:

$ touch file1 file2 file3

Use ls -l to check the modification time of a file, like this:

$ ls -l *.txt
-rw-rw-r--  1 michael   users   12 Jan 25 12:38 friends.txt

In the following ...