UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I use the cat command to concatenate text files, but one of the rows I was expecting doesn't display in the output file. Is there a verbose mode\logging mechanism for the cat command to help me investigate where the lines I was expecting are going??

Code:

 
cat 7760-001_1_*_06_*.txt | grep -v RECORD_SOURCE_SYSTEM_CODE > /data/EIRwork/DataMigration/SSWLHD/06112012_SSW-01_200k_batch/out_files/06.out

to concatenate files.

one of the files 7760-001_1_67_06_2008-02-09t14x54x52.txt contains the following rows (I've cut down the number of columns and inserted string '[null]' for clarity)

A~ZAPPA~Baby of Gigi~[null]~Miss~20080209~20120628
A~ZAPPA~KIM ~[null]~Miss~20120628~20120628
L~ZAPPA~Kim ~[null]~Miss~20120628~[null]


Only 2 of the rows I was expecting make it to the 06.out file (the top 2)
A~ZAPPA~Baby of Gigi~[null]~Miss~20080209~20120628
A~ZAPPA~KIM ~[null]~Miss~20120628~20120628

I don't really know where to begin with this one, or if I've provided enough information.

This concatentates 31 files

may be you have the non-printing characters in the line. that breaks the grep functionality

use the below commands to check

Code:

 
cat -ve filename

or check with

Code:

od -c filename