5 ms·

Well, `echo > file` won't empty the file, it will have a newline in it. At the very least you'll need `echo -n > file`.

• luckman212 7y ago
  Trick: You can use just >file
• leviathan 7y ago
  I've always done it as: `> file`
  • hultner 7y ago
    That's actually very nice, I never thought about that one.
  • hwj 7y ago
    Unfortunately, this doesn't work in fish: > fish: Expected a command, but instead found a redirection
    • danaur 7y ago
      Right but I don't think anyone is really concerned if it runs in fish. Fish is non standard and doesn't try to adhere to bash. If we want to write fish shell scripts we can do that elsewhere
      • jgtrosh 7y ago
        Funny how the same sentence applies to bash wrt POSIX shell in other contexts
• naniwaduni 7y ago
  Or after thinking about it for a moment, true > file. Or by its shorter name, :> file.
• hultner 7y ago
  `printf > file`, but there's endless ways of achieving the same thing (and that's part of the beauty).