The truncate command

shrink or extend the size of a file to the specified size 1 example from the lessons of the IVski Linux Playground — try them in the terminal next to them.

Options in the examples

-s, --size=SIZE
set or adjust the file size by SIZE bytes

Examples

sudo truncate -s 0 /var/log/huge.log

Empty a log file without deleting it (keeps the file handle valid)

Lessons that use truncate