UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I have 30 text files on UNIX that I need to concatenate and create one big file. Could anyone provide me with a solution (if one exist)? I need the answer asap (today). Thanks a lot.

Denis

Hi

you can use:

cat file1 file2 file3...... fileN > added file.

example

file1
Hello

file2
Goodbye

cat file1 file2 > fileresult

fileresult
Hello
Goodbye

Seeing as you have a lot of files it'd be quick to do something like

$ cd /path/to/files
$ files=*
$ cat $files > bigfile

Saves you typing all the filenames in. There are more ways to do this, but this is about the quickest and easiest.

Cheers
ZB

Good suggestion ZB. But there is no other way than typing all the filenames if one needs to concatenate files in a specific order.

Indeed - but this wasn't a criteria set out in the original post.

I also have a wee suspicion that this whole thing is a homework post anyway "I need the answer asap (today)" - hmmm

Cheers
ZB

zazzybob!
Your answer (found via Google search) is a great help to me, thanks.

$ cd /path/to/files
$ files=*
$ cat $files > bigfile

I modified it like that:

$ cd /path/to/files
$ files=*.txt
$ cat $files > bigfile.txt

How could I insert in front of the content of each file some special string, like many dashes, and / or the given file's name?

So, the bigfile.txt looked like this:

********* file1.txt
content of file1

********* file2.txt
content of file2

********* file3.txt
content of file3
...
...
etc

Thanks a lot,

Tamas
(I use Kubuntu, by the way)