Combining files into one

cobra7x · 11-08-2004, 09:56 AM

Hi,
Is there any way to combine a number of files into one, by means of creating some kind of reference file or link? Is there any single command to accomplish this? Thanks for help in advance.

rjlee · 11-08-2004, 10:02 AM

If you want to append a group of files to each other, look at the command cat.
If you want to put a number of files into an archive, use tar or zip.

From your question, it looks like what you are wanting to do is to create a soft reference to a number of files, i.e. a file containing the filenames of the various files you want to link to. The easiest way to achieve this would be to use a plain text (or even XML) document containing the filenames — but that rather depends on how you want to use it.

If a program accepts multiple filenames on the command-line, then you can also use filename globbing; e.g:

Code:

ls t*a?.dat

would list all files starting with t, and ending in a?.dat (where ? is any character).

Hope that helps,

—Robert J. Lee

cobra7x · 11-08-2004, 10:36 AM

I rather meant a method of concatenating files so that they APPEAR (from file system point of view) as regular file, while being only link to other files.
The point is not to use 'cat' or whatever else to create a new file.

Thanks for your concern and immediate response!

rjlee · 11-08-2004, 10:39 AM

Why do you want to do this?
The usual approach is to concatenate the files as they are used. e.g., to print a set of all the *.tex files catenated:

Code:

cat *.tex | lpr

Or to compress the catenation of each file listed in the file file.lst:

Code:

cat `cat file.lst` | bzip2

andresv · 04-19-2005, 01:02 PM

I'm trying to concatenate two files but the output is not the one that one would expect

you have two files

one

Code:

Hello W

two

Code:

orld

then execute

Code:

cat one two >> three

then, result is

three

Code:

Hello W
orld

And what I want is "Hello World" (without the CR)

Can somebody tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Is there another way of joining files? (with coreutils)

Is 'cat' binary-safe?

Thanks for the help.

andresv · 04-20-2005, 02:14 PM

I'm still stuck,
I'm reusing this existing thread, to not disturb you too much.

Is there somebody reading that?

Andrés.-

rjlee · 04-21-2005, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by andresv
I'm trying to concatenate two files but the output is not the one that one would expect

you have two files

one

Code:

Hello W

two

Code:

orld

then execute

Code:

cat one two >> three

then, result is

three

Code:

Hello W orld

And what I want is "Hello World" (without the CR)

Can somebody tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Is there another way of joining files? (with coreutils)

Is 'cat' binary-safe?

Thanks for the help.

It looks like you have a newline at the end of the one file. (Some text editors add newlines for you). You didn't say how you generated the one and two files, but here's one way to do this example properly:

Code:

echo -n "Hello W" > one
echo -n "orld" > two
cat one two

Without the -n option, echo adds a newline to the end of its output.

cat is the lowest level core utility to catenate files. It is completely binary safe. It stops at the end of the file or stream, regardless of the EOF character, and does not mangle any permitation of CR and LF characters. (But the virtual terminal does, in case that's confusing you.)

andresv · 04-21-2005, 08:33 PM

Thanks *rjlee* ... I was using cat >> one to create the file ...

And now with 'echo' works

My "real" problem is the next ...

I'm downloading iso images from an Internet Coffee ... they run win so can't use 'split' to chop the files in small pieces (to carry in my 256 MiB flash) so... i use a small program called 'Hacha' ( hacha.org ) -hacha stands for axe in spanish- but when I join the files with 'cat' they don't work

I think Hacha write his own data in the pieces... (you can join with hacha too).

The question will be ... someone knows a win software that do the same that 'split' in *nix ... googling I found that "GNU utilities for Win32" ( unxutils.sf.net ) let's see if it works the next time I visit the Coffee

Bye.

Andrés.-

cobra7x · 05-02-2005, 06:13 AM

Use ''dd' command to chop files, and 'cat' to recombine them.

WP

andresv · 05-02-2005, 02:47 PM

is dd a windows command ? ... I will try it ...

The port of the GNU coreutils for win32 ( unxutils.sf.net ) works fine

split in windows then cat

... And is faster than hacha (the so called "fastest splitter in the world!") ... yes maybe is the fastest but for windows (and with a GUI ...)

Thanks cobra7x

Andres V.-

cobra7x · 05-05-2005, 01:39 AM

'dd. is part of coreutils too. And it can read form block devices, which I'm not sure 'split' does.

regards,
WP