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Old 08-03-2012, 04:08 PM   #1
NsearchOf
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: May 2009
Posts: 8

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Using Linux command diff


Is there a way to merge two files in Linux without losing content in either file? For example
File 1 has:
Apple
Grape
Strawberry
Watermelon

File 2 has:
Green Beans
Corn
Apple
Grape

I need to merge the two so File 1 will have:
Apple
Grape
Strawberry
Watermelon
Green Beans
Corn

I have tried several examples from other posts but I can not seem to get the two files merged. One over writes the other.
My last attempt was using diff and patch

diff file1 file2 <difference
patch -p0 <difference
choose file1 to patch
..the results were it removed Strawberry and Watermelon.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
Old 08-03-2012, 04:19 PM   #2
impert
Member
 
Registered: Feb 2009
Posts: 282

Rep: Reputation: 54
Simplest way is:
Code:
cat file1 >> file2
This will append the contents of file1 to file2. A single > would replace the contents of file1 with those of file2.
 
Old 08-03-2012, 04:55 PM   #3
kaiserkarl13
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Jan 2010
Distribution: Fedora
Posts: 28

Rep: Reputation: 5
The solution using cat will duplicate the "Apple" and "Grape" entries, like so:
Apple
Grape
Strawberry
Watermelon
Green Beans
Corn
Apple
Grape

I assume that is not what the OP wanted. You can sort the list, then remove duplicates, like this:
Code:
sort -u file1 file2
which returns:
Apple
Corn
Grape
Green Beans
Strawberry
Watermelon

Not quite what you stated you wanted, but probably as good as you're going to do without writing a more complicated program. Which can be done; if you still want that, I'd look into using awk.
 
  


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