Create a file in DOS??

I need to create a file from within a batch file, but I can't find a DOS command anywhere that does this. For now, I'm just redirecting a single character to the file (and thus creating it) - ugly hack, right?

Cheers.

Just a guess

copy nul myfile

Nope (but nice try).

OK, ugly hack #2:

type nul > myfile

...dos sucks. :)

Look up DOS interrupt 21h in Ralph Brown's Interrupt List.

You can call an interrupt from a batch file?

>>I need to create a file from within a batch file
And you can't write a program to do that for you (create the file)?

>>copy nul myfile
... as expected, this works for me. What errors do you get?

>>type nul > myfile
... would've been my second choice after copy.

Well no, but creating a file from within a batch file does not fall under DOS programming. That falls more under what can be done in DOS from a user viewpoint rather than what can be accomplished in code under DOS.


edit <some_name>.bat



There are several batch commands for you to use inside of batch files. Look up DOS 6.22 batch commands on www.google.com and you will find all of em.

>> And you can't write a program to do that for you (create the file)?

I'm invoking a chain of compilation tools, the file in question gets created/destroyed somewhat dynamically.

>>copy nul myfile

All I get is '(0) Files copied' and no file.

Anyway, thanks for all of the suggestions. :)

Gimme more info Sebastiani and I can help. If anything I could code a simple program in C that could invoke DOS int 21h to do this for you.

Well if you're going to the trouble of writing an external program, then a simple
fclose(fopen("file","w"));
type hack seems to be easy enough.

The 'touch' program on linux is a more capable version, and there are ports to the MS world.