Dtyjlui

I want to create a markdown file and open it simultaneously

$ touch ~/Documents/Ubuntu/drafts.md; open ~/Document/Ubuntu/drafts.md

The solution is cumbersome, is there a shortcut to handle such a task?

There's no such shortcut, Apparently, one could use Alt+. according to Sebastian Stark's answer

touch ${filename}

xdg-open <alt>+<.>

If your shell uses libreadline ( which /bin/dash on Ubuntu does not, but bash does ), then you can use that shortcut.

You can also create a file with shorter number of characters via bash:

: > ${filename}; xdg-open ${filename}

In this case, : command is built-in no-op command, which only returns exit status of 0 for success, but the trick here is that shell creates new or truncates existing file designated by ${filename}. xdg-open opens the said filename in default editor, since it will be just a plain file.

If you want to go even shorter, you can use bash history expansion feature to reuse command parameters:

: > myfile.txt ; xdg-open !#:1

If portability is a concern, you should use $_ for other shells. Of course, you can turn these into function or alias and call the alias or function name; call it something like mko() for "make and open":

# function definition to put in ~/.bashrc

mko(){  : > "$1"; xdg-open !#:1 }

# call it as so:

mko ~/Documents/myfile.md

Making a function also has advantage in adding a template to the file, if you need that:

mko(){ 

cat > "$1" <<EOF

### HEADING1

- bullet 1

- bullet 2

EOF 



xdg-open "$1" 

}

Sidenote: in case you also need to create directories along the path, you should use mkdir -p, see the related question.

Sidenote No.2: dessert's answer actually addresses a very fair point: most text editors do allow specifying a pathname for new file as one of their arguments. However, in cases where file has to exist - otherwise you get No such file or directory error - well, you can use this answer. Consider also that > truncates an existing file, so this can be useful where you want to quickly clear the file and start adding new content.

Let the editor create the file

Most (if not all) editors automatically create the file if you open them with a filename of a nonexistent one. You can save the touch and simply open the new file directly, e.g.:

nano ~/Document/Ubuntu/drafts.md

vim ~/Document/Ubuntu/drafts.md

leafpad ~/Document/Ubuntu/drafts.md

This will create the new empty file and open it. Like your approach it will fail if a directory needs to be created in the process.