Combining two files

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I have two files and I need to combine (not append - but combine a row to a row)

eg:
File1:
apples
grapes
oranges
lemons

File2:
red
green
orange
yellow

After combining, the file should look like: (the second column should start at a specific byte)
apples red
grapes green
oranges orange
lemons yellow

Thanks

2

'man paste'

3

Thanks for the reply.

I tried the paste and it worked but the tab is not adjusted and this was my fear.

eg: after paste

apples red
grapes green
oranges orange
lemon yellow

I was wondering something like the first line of file 1 stars at the 1 postion of the line and the first line of file 2 starts at the 60th position of the line.

Thanks again.

4

you can specify delimiters (TAB by default) with the '-d' switch.

5

Try this awk program:

#!/usr/bin/awk -f
#Awk program : paste.awk

function readFile(i,    rec) {
   if (getline rec < ARGV)
      return rec;
   else {
      ++eof;
      return "";
   }
}

BEGIN {
   while (1) {
      rec1 = readFile(1);
      rec2 = readFile(2);
      if (eof[1] && eof[2]) break;
      printf("%-60s%s\n", rec1, rec2);
   }
   exit;
}

Output:

$ awk -f paste.awk file1.txt file2.txt
apples                                                      red
grapes                                                      green
oranges                                                     orange
lemons                                                      yellow
$

Jean-Pierre.

6

Or...

paste file1 file2 | awk -F '\t' '{printf "%-60s%s\n", $1, $2}'
7

Simpler, but assumes that none of the files contains tabulation.

Jean-Pierre.

8

Sure, and if they do contain tabs, then it's simple to specify a unique delimiter.