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up vote 17 down vote favorite
4

I have a log file that has a bunch of stuff in it that I don't need anymore. I want to clear the contents.

I know how to print the contents to the screen:

cat file.log

I know how to edit the file, line-by-line:

nano file.log

But I don't want to delete each line one at a time. Is there a way to do it in one command without destroying the file to do it?

Solution:

This worked for me:

> file.log
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6 Answers

up vote 20 down vote accepted

In bash, just

> filename

will do.

This will leave you with an empty file filename.

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up vote 8 down vote

you could always type this:

echo "" > file.log

not >> as this will append.

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This will leave a space in there. – dmckee Jan 1 '10 at 1:58
2  
+1. "" > file.log if you don't want the space. – RJFalconer Jan 1 '10 at 2:18
I'm getting this: -bash: : command not found – Andrew Jan 1 '10 at 3:52
1  
should be echo " " > file.log, I believe. – Babu Jan 1 '10 at 4:13
1  
echo "" > will still give you a file with one character (a newline.) If you want to use echo, use "echo -n > file.log" to echo null. – Dave Forgac May 4 '12 at 19:47
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up vote 3 down vote 
$ rm file.log; touch file.log

or

$ cat > file.log

followed by control-d.

or...or...or...

Ah. Here is a single command version:

$ dd if=/dev/null of=file.log
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2  
Thechickenmoo's suggestion of echo "" > file.log is better than the cat option you show, in this situation, tho there are others where cat is more appropriate. both use the same shell redirection to do the heavy lifting. – quack quixote Jan 1 '10 at 4:57
2  
You dont need to run the cat command. Just "> file.log" will do it. – camh Jan 1 '10 at 6:22
1  
@camh: +1, that's a trick i didn't know before. nice one. – quack quixote Jan 1 '10 at 12:42
up vote 3 down vote

IF you want to do from inside a vim editor in command line, you can try this:

vim file.txt

Press Esc.

:1,$d

Press Enter.

You will find all lines deleted.

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up vote 1 down vote

ZSH

>! filename

ZSH will protect users from clobbering files using the io redirect operator >. If you use >! you can force the truncation of an existing file.

If you want ZSH to use Bash's redirection behavior, were there is no protection from file clobbering, then you need to set the clobber option for your shell.

More Info: http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/Redirection.html

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up vote 0 down vote

One line at a time?

Try vi(m), the lovely text editor that can do anything. In this case, navigate to a line, press d (for delete), and d again (for line).

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4  
If you want to get rid of the whole file in vim, with the cursor at the top of the document, typing d G (that's d, then shift-G) will delete the entire file (d for delete, G for end of the file). I prefer your method, though (it gives me more time to think about whether or not I REALLY want to trash the file). – Babu Jan 1 '10 at 4:19

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