Shell Programming and Scripting

hi, i have a similar question,

i would like to view multiple files using cat, but i don't know the correct command to use.

example:
i have the following files
file12345
file12346
file12347
file12348
and so on up to....
file43455


is there a one-line command that can cat all these files?

i know about wildcards, but what i'm thinking is to issue the following commands:

Code:

cat file1234[5-9]
cat file123[4-9]?
cat file12[4-9]??

and so on.. but these are a set of commands that does the cat'ing part by part... can i cat all those files using a one-line command??

thanks for helping

Depending on what you want:

Code:

cat file*

Or:

Code:

cat file[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]

To see which files will be matched by a pattern without running any command on them, use:

Code:

printf "%s\n" PATTERN
## e.g.: printf "%s\n" file*

yes, im aware of that, but my concern is that i would like to have a one-line command that lists files file12345-file34224. I know that I can't just issue the command

Code:

cat file[1-3][2-4][3-2][4-5]

because it will not include all other files i want. i have a set of files with sequence numbers but i just want to display a portion of it using a one line command.

if there is an alternative way to do this?

to make it short, i have a set of files from file00000 up to file99999. I just want to display files from file12345-file34224. if anyone can give a one line command for it, i can take it from that example.

What files do you want?

The patterns I posted will give you all the files
a) that begin with "file" and
b) all the files that are the word "file" followed by 4 digits.

What more do you want?

i have a set of files from file00000 up to file99999. I want to display files from file12345-file34224.

can you please provide a one line command for it, so that i can take the logic from your answer?

Well, there is nothing wrong with a loop on the commandline:

Code:

filenr=12345;while [ $filenr -le 34224 ] ; do cat file$filenr ; (( filenr += 1 )) ; done

You could of course also write a little script:

Code:

#! /bin/ksh

typeset -i start=$1
typeset -i end=$2
typeset -i counter=$start

while [ $counter -le end ] ; do
     if [ -r file$counter ] ; do
          cat file$counter
     fi
     (( counter += 1 ))
done

exit 0

Save this as "auto-cat.sh", give it execute rights and use it like "auto-cat.sh 1 5" to display file1, file2, ...., file5

bakunin

thanks bakunin and cfajohnson!

i wasn't aware that we can issue a set of looping commands using delimiter ;

great help!