Edit files with cat


 
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# 1  
Old 01-30-2011
Edit files with cat

Hi, sometimes one wants to edit files while still seeing output of earlier commands in terminal. I've found out that cat test && cat - >> test does the trick for displaying file content and adding lines but I believe I saw a much cooler command that was also able to erase lines from files. I cannot find that site again. Could someone here please enlighten me? Thanks in advance.
# 2  
Old 01-30-2011
may be you are referring to sed or awk
# 3  
Old 01-30-2011
I dont think neither sed or awk was involved but then again I could be wrong. I believe it was something like this: cat - >> test < $1
I know that doesn't work but it's what I can remember it looked like. But how do I use sed or awk for real time editing?
# 4  
Old 01-30-2011
Maybe less or more command
# 5  
Old 01-30-2011
cat does not edit part of files, no. it always spews out entire files.
# 6  
Old 01-30-2011
I know I tried the command when I found it and as I remember it I were able to edit the entire file, but maybe I'm wrong. I found it in some sort of competition or whatever where people were kind of bragging about their most useful cool UNIX command. It was quite a simple line. I'm to lazy with my bookmarks Smilie Thanks all for your input.
# 7  
Old 01-31-2011
try "diff -u A B"
A(B) stands for the files you wanna to compare with
 
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