In some situations, you might want to truncate (empty) an existing file to a zero-length. In simple words, truncating a file means removing the file contents without deleting the file.

Truncating a file is much faster and easier than deleting the file, recreating it, and setting the correct permissions and ownership. Also, if the file is opened by a process, removing the file may cause the program that uses it to malfunction.

This tutorial explains how to truncate files to zero size in Linux systems using shell redirection and the truncate command.

#linux #files