UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I am trying to glue 4 comma separated values files side by side into one. Right now, I'm working based on this:

i="1"
while [ $i -lt 426 ] #files are 425 lines
do
echo `head -$i file1.csv | tail -1`,`head -$i file2.csv | tail -1`,`head -$i file3.csv | tail -1`,`head -$i file4.csv | tail -1` >> finished.csv
let "i += 1"
done

for some reason though, the echo command does not output the data in a single line, and if you try to output from all 4 files by typing the echo command directly into the shell, it only displays the first half of the data. Does anyone know why echo is not cooperating?

Those head and tail commands (more precisely: they are written through from the originating files) give you end-of-line-marks, which echo does not filter out. Try filtering them out through e.g. tr.

Code:

i="1"
while [ $i -lt 426 ] #files are 425 lines
do
  echo `head -$i file1.csv | tail -1`,`head -$i file2.csv | tail -1`,`head -$i file3.csv \
  | tail -1`,`head -$i file4.csv | tail -1| tr "\n" " "` >> finished.csv
  let "i += 1"
done

PS: use the code tag when giving code, it's much better readable

Try...

Code:

paste -d, file1.csv file2.csv file3.csv file4.csv > finished.csv