UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have one space delimited file with multiple columns and one tab delimited file with multiple columns (They have the same number of rows). I want to basically combine these two text files into a new text file by column. How would I go about doing that?

Check out the paste command. That might be all you need. If it isn't, then something as simple as an awk script like this might work:

Code:

awk -v f1=file1 -v f2=file2 '
    BEGIN {
        while( (getline<f1) > 0 )
        {
            printf( "%s ", $0 );
            getline <f2;
            printf( "%s\n", $0 );
        }
    }
'

If your files end up being different lengths, you'll have to jump more hurdles, but as long as they are the same length, or you want to stop when the end of file1 is reached, this'll work.

This also won't preserve your tabs. if you need to do that, you'll need to print things a bit differently.