[linux] Can linux cat command be used for writing text to file?

Is something like this:

cat "Some text here." > myfile.txt

Possible? Such that the contents of myfile.txt would now be overwritten to:

Some text here.

This doesn't work for me, but also doesn't throw any errors.

Specifically interested in a cat-based solution (not vim/vi/emacs, etc.). All examples online show cat used in conjunction with file inputs, not raw text...

This question is related to linux cat

The answer is


Here's another way -

cat > outfile.txt
>Enter text
>to save press ctrl-d

I use the following code to write raw text to files, to update my CPU-settings. Hope this helps out! Script:

#!/bin/sh

cat > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor <<EOF
performance
EOF

cat > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_governor <<EOF
performance
EOF

This writes the text "performance" to the two files mentioned in the script above. This example overwrite old data in files.

This code is saved as a file (cpu_update.sh) and to make it executable run:

chmod +x cpu_update.sh

After that, you can run the script with:

./cpu_update.sh

IF you do not want to overwrite the old data in the file, switch out

cat > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_governor <<EOF

with

cat >> /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/scaling_governor <<EOF

This will append your text to the end of the file without removing what other data already is in the file.


Write multi-line text with environment variables using echo:

echo -e "
Home Directory: $HOME \n
hello world 1 \n
hello world 2 \n
line n... \n
" > file.txt 

simply pipeline echo with cat

For example

echo write something to file.txt | cat > file.txt

cat > filename.txt

enter the text until EOF for save the text use : ctrl+d

if you want to read that .txt file use

cat filename.txt

and one thing .txt is not mandatory, its for your reference.


Another way to write text to file using cat would be something like this

cat >file.txt <<< Write something here

Sounds like you're looking for a Here document

cat > outfile.txt <<EOF
>some text
>to save
>EOF

cat can also be used following a | to write to a file, i.e. pipe feeds cat a stream of data


For text file:

cat > output.txt <<EOF
some text
some lines
EOF

For PHP file:

cat > test.php <<PHP
<?php
echo "Test";
echo \$var;
?>
PHP

The Solution to your problem is :

echo " Some Text Goes Here " > filename.txt

But you can use cat command if you want to redirect the output of a file to some other file or if you want to append the output of a file to another file :

cat filename > newfile -- To redirect output of filename to newfile

cat filename >> newfile -- To append the output of filename to newfile


You can do it like this too:

user@host: $ cat<<EOF > file.txt
$ > 1 line
$ > other line
$ > n line
$ > EOF
user@host: $ _

I believe there is a lot of ways to use it.