Unix - create path of folders and file

Question

I know you can do mkdir to create a directory and touch to create a file, but is there no way to do both operations in one go?

i.e. if I wa

Answer 1

no need for if then statements... you can do it on a single line usign ;

mkdir -p /my/other/path/here;cp /my/long/path/here/thing.txt /my/other/path/here/cpedthing.txt

-- or on two lines --

mkdir -p /my/other/path/here
cp /my/long/path/here/thing.txt /my/other/path/here/cpedthing.txt

-- the -p prevents error returns if the directory already exists (which is what I came here looking for :))

Answer 2

In the special (but not uncommon) case where you are trying to recreate the same directory hierarchy, cp --parents can be useful.

For example if /my/long contains the source files, and my/other already exists, you can do this:

cd /my/long
cp --parents path/here/thing.txt /my/other

Answer 3

as I saw and test in a unix forum this solves the problem

ptouch() {
    for p in "$@"; do
        _dir="$(dirname -- "$p")"
        [ -d "$_dir" ] || mkdir -p -- "$_dir"
    touch -- "$p"
    done
}

Answer 4

You need to make all of the parent directories first.

FILE=./base/data/sounds/effects/camera_click.ogg

mkdir -p "$(dirname "$FILE")" && touch "$FILE"

---

If you want to get creative, you can make a function:

mktouch() {
    if [ $# -lt 1 ]; then
        echo "Missing argument";
        return 1;
    fi

    for f in "$@"; do
        mkdir -p -- "$(dirname -- "$f")"
        touch -- "$f"
    done
}

And then use it like any other command:

mktouch ./base/data/sounds/effects/camera_click.ogg ./some/other/file

Answer 5

if you want simple with only 1 param snippet :

rm -rf /abs/path/to/file;  #prevent cases when old file was a folder
mkdir -p /abs/path/to/file; #make it fist as a dir
rm -rf /abs/path/to/file; #remove the leaf of the dir preserving parents 
touch /abs/path/to/file; #create the actual file