merge text files

UNIX AIX
1

Hello.
Could you please help to know the command to merge multiple text files into one?
I am thinking to use:

cat f1.txt f2.txt f3.txt > f4.txt

Is it okay to use cat command for same purpose - Or could there be any disadvantage in using it?

Thank you

2

It is ok; you could just try it out and check the file afterwards. If it looks ok, cat and the redirection must have done a good job.

Since this is nothing special to AIX think about posting such kind of question into one of the more appropriate forums next time please. No offense, but since this is a very basic question UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers - The UNIX and Linux Forums would be a good choice for it next time.
If it goes deeper into shell scripting etc. you can also post in

Shell Programming and Scripting - The UNIX and Linux Forums
UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users - The UNIX and Linux Forums

3

No problem, that's what cat is for.

Regards

4

Hello - Thanks for your reply.

Now consider I have a common header 'HEADER' and trailer 'TRAILER' in all the files and I want to have their header , trailer only once in the concatenated output file. Please advice how could that be done?

Thank you

5

If you have the 'HEADER' at the first line and 'TRAILER' at the last line in all your files you can delete the those lines after merging the files with:

awk -v var=`wc -l < file` 'NR>1 && /HEADER/ || NR<var && /TRAILER/{next}{print}' file > newfile

First we use a variable var wich is the number of the last line (wc -l < file).
Now we print every line except the line with HEADER if it isn't the first line and the line with TRAILER if it isn't the last line.

Regards