Concatenate multiple files but include filename as section headers

Question

I would like to concatenate a number of text files into one large file in terminal  I know I can do this using the cat command  However  I would like the filename of each file to precede the  data dump  for that file  Anyone know how to do this   what I currently have   file1 txt   bluemoongoodbeer  file2 txt   awesomepossum  file3 txt   hownowbrowncow  cat file1 txt file2 txt file3 txt   desired output   file1  bluemoongoodbeer  file2  awesomepossum  file3  hownowbrowncow

User · Answer

If the files all have the same name or can be matched by find  you can do  e g     find   -name create sh   xargs tail -n  1   to find  show the path of and cat each file

User · Answer

If you want the result in the same format as your desired output you can try   for file in  ls file 1  3  txt     do echo  file   cut -d     -f 1     cat  file    done    Result    file1 bluemoongoodbeer file2 awesomepossum file3 hownowbrowncow   You can put echo -e before and after the cut so you have the spacing between the lines as well     for file in  ls file 1  3  txt   do echo  file   cut -d     -f 1  echo -e  cat  file  echo -e    done    Result   file1  bluemoongoodbeer  file2  awesomepossum  file3  hownowbrowncow

User · Answer

AIX 7 1 ksh       glomming onto those who ve already mentioned head works for some of us     r head head file  txt    gt  file1 txt  lt    xxx 111     gt  file2 txt  lt    yyy 222 nyuk nyuk nyuk     gt  file3 txt  lt    zzz     My need is to read the first line  as noted  if you want more than 10 lines  you ll have to add options  head -9999  etc    Sorry for posting a derivative comment  I don t have sufficient street cred to comment add to someone s comment

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This should do the trick   for filename in file1 txt file2 txt file3 txt  do     echo   filename      cat   filename  done  gt  output txt   or to do this for all text files recursively   find   -type f -name    txt  -print   while read filename  do     echo   filename      cat   filename  done  gt  output txt

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I like this option   for x in   ls     php   do echo  x  cat  x   grep -i  menuItem   done   Output looks like this     debug-things php   Facebook Pixel Code php   footer trusted seller items php   GoogleAnalytics php   JivositeCode php   Live-Messenger php   mPopex php   NOTIFICATIONS-box php   reviewPopUp Frame php                 top-nav-scroller-pos- lt    active  MenuItem     gt    addClass  active                gotTo  MenuItem        Reviews-Frames-PopUps php   social media login btns php   social-side-bar php   staticWalletsAlerst php   tmp-fix php   top-nav-scroller php  active  MenuItem      0            active  MenuItem      1            active  MenuItem      2            active  MenuItem      3     Waiting-Overlay php   Yandex Metrika php

User · Answer

find   -type f -exec cat       -print

User · Answer

For solving this tasks I usually use the following command     cat file 1  3  txt  gt  gt  result txt   It s a very convenient way to concatenate files if the number of files is quite large

User · Answer

This should do the trick as well   find   -type f -print -exec cat         Means   find      linux  find  command finds filenames  see  man find  for more info           in current directory -type f   only files  not directories -print    show found file -exec     additionally execute another linux command cat       linux  cat  command  see  man cat   displays file contents           placeholder for the currently found filename           tell  find  command that it ends now here   You further can combine searches trough boolean operators like -and or -or  find -ls is nice  too

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This is how I normally handle formatting like that   for i in    do echo   i   echo   cat   i   echo   done     I generally pipe the cat into a grep for specific information

User · Answer

find   -type f -print0   xargs -0 -I   sh -c  echo    cat      This will print the full filename  including path   then the contents of the file  It is also very flexible  as you can use -name  expr  for the find command  and run as many commands as you like on the files

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First I created each file  echo  information    file1 txt for each file 123  txt   Then I printed each file to makes sure information was correct  tail file  txt  Then I did this  tail file  txt    Mainfile txt  This created the Mainfile txt to store the information in each file into a main file   cat Mainfile txt confirmed it was okay       file1 txt  lt    bluemoongoodbeer      file2 txt  lt    awesomepossum      file3 txt  lt    hownowbrowncow

User · Answer

Here is a really simple way   You said you want to cat  which implies you want to view the entire file   But you also need the filename printed   Try this  head -n99999999   or head -n99999999 file1 txt file2 txt file3 txt  Hope that helps

User · Answer

This method will print filename and then file contents   tail -f file1 txt file2 txt   Output      gt  file1 txt  lt    contents of file1 txt     contents of file1 txt         gt  file2 txt  lt    contents of file2 txt     contents of file2 txt

User · Answer

If you want to replace those ugly      lt    with something else  tail -n  1   txt   sed -e  s    gt   n    g  -e  s  lt        g   gt  gt   files txt    explanation   tail -n  1   txt - output all files in folder with header  sed -e  s    gt   n    g  -e  s  lt        g  - replace    gt  with new line       and  lt    with just         gt  gt   files txt  - output all to a file

User · Answer

I used grep for something similar   grep      txt   It does not give you a  header   but prefixes every line with the filename

User · Answer

Was looking for the same thing  and found this to suggest   tail -n  1 file1 txt file2 txt file3 txt   Output      gt  file1 txt  lt     lt contents of file1 txt gt      gt  file2 txt  lt     lt contents of file2 txt gt      gt  file3 txt  lt     lt contents of file3 txt gt    If there is only a single file then the header will not be printed  If using GNU utils  you can use -v to always print a header

User · Answer

And the missing awk solution is     awk   FNR  1  print   gt  gt    FILENAME    lt  lt   1

User · Answer

you can use this simple command instead of using a for loop   ls -ltr   awk   print  9     xargs head

User · Answer

If you like colors  try this   for i in    do echo  echo    e 33 1m  i   e 0m   cat  i  done   less -R   or   tail -n  1     grep -e   -e          or   with package  multitail  installed   multitail

User · Answer

When there is more than one input file  the more command concatenates them and also includes each filename as a header  To concatenate to a file  more   txt  gt  out txt  To concatenate to the terminal  more   txt   cat  Example output                 file1 txt                This is my first file                 file2 txt                And this is my second file

[unix] Concatenate multiple files but include filename as section headers

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