Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi all,

I want to create a file and then insert some text into it. I'm trying to create a .sh script that will create a new python file from a template.

Can someone tell me why this won't work,

Code:

touch $1 | sed -e '1i\Some test code here'

Sorry I'm quite new to all this!

Just as a side question, I know that $ is the regex for the last line, but what is the symbol for the first line in a file?

Thanks in advance!


Andrew

Because the pipe "pipes" the output of one process to the input of another. In this case, touch $1 will create/modify time stamp of the file and will not produce any output to be used by the other (sed) command/process.

Why don't you try cat with here-string? (I am suggesting this as replacement for your command line).
cat >> $1 <<<"Some test code here"

You can just use echo to write to a (new) file:

Code:

echo "Some test code here" > filename

If you want to append to a file, use >> instead of >.

Code:

 
echo "Some test code here" > filename

is the simplest of all the commands.
Also $ in sed "s/" is the regex for the end of line. and ^ is the begin line.
for example:

Code:

 
bash-3.00$ cat filename
Some test code here
bash-3.00$ cat filename|sed "s/$/9/"
Some test code here9
bash-3.00$ cat filename|sed "s/^/9/"
9Some test code here

Is that what you meant to ask?