How can I create an arbitrary file in a bash script and how is it possible to delete a created file?

Question

How can I create a random file using bash on Linux and how is it possible to delete a created file? I am not sure.

Idea: The user should enter an arbitrary file name and save it. They can also delete this saved file.

Thanks in advance

Code to delete a file:

    if [ "$REPLY" = "d" ];                                                                             

        then

        read -r -p 'Delete file: Please enter the name of the file to delete: ' -a delete_file 

        echo -e "\nFile was deleted: ${delete_file[*]}\n"                                  

        break

    fi

Answer 1

You can create a file using the > redirection operator wither with a command (command > file) or by itself:

> file

Note that this will overwrite the contents of file if a file with that name already exists. If no such file exists, an empty one will be created.

Alternatively, you can use the touch command which will also create a file if a file with the name you give it doesn't already exist, but will not overwrite the contents of an existing file. If a file with that name exists, the touch command will update its modification timestamp:

touch file

So, in a script, if you want to prompt the user for a file name and create it, you could do:

#!/bin/bash

read -p "Enter a file name: " fileName
echo "You entered: '$fileName'"

while [ -e "$fileName" ]; do
   read -p "A file named '$fileName' already exists, delete? [y/n]: "
   if [ "$REPLY" = "y" ]; then
     rm -- "$fileName"
   else
      read -p "Enter a different file name: " fileName
   fi
done

touch -- "$fileName"

To make a file with a random name, the best tool is mktemp which will make sure that the name is unique in the target directory (see man mktemp for details):

$ randomFileName=$(mktemp)
$ echo "$randomFileName"
/tmp/tmp.QLLdNLFBFd