I want to join several .mp3 files into one file. The files need to be sorted by modification time.

The command sorts how I need, and quotes the filenames with single quotes.

The command joins files, generally speaking.

I can combine these into if using simple filenames.

The filenames I'm using though are UGLY and non-uniform, such as

' - --- some (words)- @www.xyz.com --.mp3'

so the command breaks down, and gives an error such as:

cat: unrecognized option '----'

The --quoting-style=shell-always seems not to make a difference in this context.

How could I make this work? A single command is preferable. A short script would be acceptable.

Other Information:
The files are created by recording streaming music. Some stations split songs up into several files, naming them automatically.

How about:
ls -rt -- | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -0 cat -- >joined_file.mp3

The double dashes will prevent problems for filenames that start with a dash.

Yes! Two neat tricks there: the "--" and the "tr '\n' '\0'"

I don't understand why "ls" would need "--" since the only arguments to it are "-rt". The above solution worked fine for me without it.

I'm also wondering if the output of ls needs to be one file per line in order for tr to null terminate each file name. So: ls -rt1 (rt one) ?

Also thanks for showing me a new way to use xargs. I was used to: