UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Been tearing my hair out trying to work out how to make the -t option in the join command work.

Joining two files on col 1; columns in both files are separated by tabs.

file1:

2010/02/01-00:00 10.63
2010/02/01-00:06 10.63
2010/02/01-00:12 10.61
2010/02/01-00:18 10.58
(there are LOTS more lines in this file)

File2:
2010/02/01-00:03 10.63 H
2010/02/01-06:06 -1.36 L
2010/02/01-12:21 11.39 H
2010/02/01-18:37 -1.82 L
2010/02/02-00:52 10.77 H
(more lines in this file too)

I've been using:

Code:

join -a1 -a2 -o '1.1 1.2 2.2 2.3' file1 file2 > resultFile.txt

but the only time the output (-o 1.1 1.2 2.2 2.3) begins to work is using -t:, but that is a problem due to the ':' in the timestamps. Whenever I try -t\t, -t'\t', -t"\t" it fails with the join help display.

How do I format a tab using -t?

OS 10.6.2, BASH shell iMac 2.8 ghz Intel Core 2 Duo

What is the desired output, can you post it too?

For example (tab separated columns)
file1:col1, col2:
2010/02/01-06:06 -1.36

file2: col1, col2, col3
2010/02/01-06:06 -1.36 L

what I'd like is:

2010/02/01-06:06 -1.36 -1.36 L

It may seem odd, but I'm using the result in gnuplot, with col1 & col2 to draw the curve, and col3 & col4 to label the high and low points of the curve (this is tidal data).

There might be a way around this in gnuplot but I'm at the beginning on a learning curve there too so for the moment I may need to do it this way.

the code below works very well, just like you wanted. Id like to draw your attention to where I changed first line of 2.txt file same as first line of 1.txt, So no need to use anything except "-a" options.

Code:

cat 1.txt 
2010/02/01-00:00        10.63
2010/02/01-00:06        10.63
2010/02/01-00:12        10.61
2010/02/01-00:18        10.58

Code:

cat 2.txt 
2010/02/01-00:00        10.63   H
2010/02/01-06:06        -1.36   L
2010/02/01-12:21        11.39   H
2010/02/01-18:37        -1.82   L
2010/02/02-00:52        10.77   H

Code:

join -a1 -a2 1.txt 2.txt > 3.txt

Code:

cat 3.txt 
2010/02/01-00:00 10.63 10.63 H
2010/02/01-00:06 10.63
2010/02/01-00:12 10.61
2010/02/01-00:18 10.58
2010/02/01-06:06 -1.36 L
2010/02/01-12:21 11.39 H
2010/02/01-18:37 -1.82 L
2010/02/02-00:52 10.77 H

That's great, many thanks for your time and help.