UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi, I would like to paste multiple files together into one large file.
I have 23 of them and I would like to link them on a common variable without writing all the file names out (like in a simple join). Each has about 28,000 columns, but only 17 rows.
So the final product would be a single file with 17 rows and 644,000 columns.

Alternately, I don't need to link on the variable, I just want to get the columns side by side.

My problem is that when I use a command like:
paste $file$i.txt >> large_file.txt
in a for loop, the next 17 lines from a new file just get put in below the previous files, instead of adding in the columns. I end up with 17*23 rows...
Is there a specification in the paste command that I am overlooking?

Thanks for your time.
karey

Check the man page for paste - it's normally run as:

Code:

paste file1 file2 file3 file4 >output.txt

Depending on your version, there's always the possibility of running into some limitation on the number of columns... Also in the man page there may be things like how to specify the delimiter.

I have 23 files that have larger names than "file.txt".
I don't want to have to write them all out, and I want to learn for next time.
I want to use a loop.

I would just use paste *.txt or something but they also have to be in a certain order.

Thanks