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Using cat on specific files only

 
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# 1  
Old 03-22-2012
Using cat on specific files only
I am concatenating txt-files using cat:
Code:
cat *.txt > file.dat

However, the same directory has the installation instructions included, which is also a txt file: install.txt
I currently have the install.txt file renamed to install._txt, but I prefer a solution using regular expressions.
Is there an elegant way to exclude the install.txt from being concatenated as well?
# 2  
Old 03-22-2012
Hi figaro,

One way:
Code:
$ awk '{ if ( FILENAME == "install.txt" ) { nextfile } ; print }' *.txt >file.dat

# 3  
Old 03-22-2012
In bash pattern matching try
Code:
shopt -s extglob
ls !(install|another|someother).txt

files with .txt will list excluding the ones in the alternation pattern !(pattarn1|pattern2)

If you have lots of exclusions, this won't be "elegant".

ksh93 does similar pattern matching, but of course it is different, check your documentation.
# 4  
Old 03-27-2012
Thank you for your answer. I have tried several combinations of the exclamation mark solution (!), but getting "Badly placed ()'s" error. The current shell is csh, so that may have something to do with it.
# 5  
Old 03-27-2012
For slower action you can also use find with cat.
Code:
find . -type f -name "*.txt" ! -name "install.txt" -exec cat > outfile.txt {} \;

Hope that helps
Regards
Peasant
# 6  
Old 03-29-2012
Works great, thanks.
 
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