How do I create multiple files names from list.txt in bash?

Question

I want to create multiple files at a time using names from a file list.txt, how can I do it?

Sample list.txt:

EOG090W002U
EOG090W00C1
EOG090W00DC
EOG090W00DE
EOG090W00E5
EOG090W00HR
EOG090W00MH
EOG090W00MS
EOG090W00PB
EOG090W00U4
EOG090W00UK
EOG090W00WM
EOG090W00WR

Suppose I have this list.txt containing some id-numbers. Now I want to make separate files using these ids as the name (e.g. EOG090W002U_M0.ctl, EOG090W00C1_M0.ctl, EOG090W00DC_M0.ctl). Also, the contents of the files need to be change accordingly. For example the content of EOG090W002U_M0.ctl, EOG090W00C1_M0.ctl file will be

seqfile = EOG090W002U_p.phy
treefile = Constant.txt
outfile = EOG090W002U_M0_mlc

or

seqfile = EOG090W00C1_p.phy
treefile = Constant.txt
outfile = EOG090W00C1_M0_mlc

where *.phy and Constant.txt will be provided in the same folder.

Answer 1

Simplest:

xargs touch <List.txt

The magic is that xargs takes every line in its stdin and adds it as an argument to the command.

Answer 2

Using GNU parallel in a script:

#!/bin/bash

constant=constant

populate_file () {
    local const=$1
    local file=$(basename -s '.M0.ctl' "$2")
    printf '%s\n%s\n%s\n' \
    "seqfile = ${file}_p.phy" \
    "treefile = ${const}.txt" \
    "outfile = ${file}_M0_mlc" > "$2"
}

export -f populate_file

parallel populate_file "$constant" {}.M0.ctl :::: list.txt

This will read lines from list.txt and execute the populate_file function against each one in parallel. The populate_file function will output the three lines in the desired format into each file.

In the absence of GNU parallel you can use a while read loop:

#!/bin/bash

constant=constant

populate_file () {
    local const=$1
    local file=$(basename -s '.M0.ctl' "$2")
    printf '%s\n%s\n%s\n' \
    "seqfile = ${file}_p.phy" \
    "treefile = ${const}.txt" \
    "outfile = ${file}_M0_mlc" > "$2"
}

while IFS= read -r file; do
    populate_file "$constant" "${file/ /}.M0.ctl"
done < list.txt

Answer 3

You can try something like: for i in $(cat list.txt); do touch $i; done

Answer 4

Another way

tr -s '[:blank:]' '[\n*]' < list.txt | 
  while IFS= read -r word; do
   touch "$word";
  done

This answer has been provided with the assumption that all "words" in file was in the same (first) line and where separated by blank characters.

Answer 5

#!/bin/bash

tr -d '[:blank:]' < list.txt > outputFile.tmp

for i in $(cat outputFile.tmp)
do
  echo "seqfile = ${i}_p.phy" >> ${i}_M0.ctl
  echo "treefile = constant.txt" >> ${i}_M0.ctl
  echo "outfile = ${i}_M0_mlc" >> ${i}_M0.ctl
done
exit 0

Explanation:

1. tr -d '[:blank:]' < list.txt > outputFile.tmp will remove blanks from list and copy it to outputFile.tmp
2. for loop reads all lines from outputFile.tmp and adds the necessary context to the files by creating them on the fly.