1

I would like to write 8 lines from file1 at the beginning of file2.

My file1 contains the following lines:

$BQ  
{ VOL       @home    }  
database    daba  
relation    tcdeatid  
copy           1  
{ version        0 }  
opendb  
clear
# other stuff

My file2 contains the following lines:

.lruno := 72  
.infno := 1    
writedb     
clear

My output file will be:

$BQ  
{ VOL       @home    }  
database    daba  
relation    tcdeatid  
copy           1  
{ version        0 }  
opendb  
clear  
.lruno := 72  
.infno := 1    
writedb       
clear
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4
  • Does file1 have more than 8 lines and you just want the first 8, or do you mean that you want all of file1 put before file2? Solutions can be different depending on which you mean, and if the intent wasn't just 8 lines but all of the file, you should remove my edit. Commented Jun 15, 2015 at 15:53
  • yes file 1 have only 8 lines and I want only first 8lines of file1 to be put before the lines of file2. Commented Jun 15, 2015 at 15:56
  • "head -n8 file1 | cat - file2 > file2" and "paste -sd'\n' file1 file2" results same output. Commented Jun 15, 2015 at 15:56
  • But the results differ if the newline in file1 is in a different place. Commented Jun 15, 2015 at 18:56

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
3

You can do it with standard tools.

With paste:

paste -sd'\n' file1 file2

With sed:

sed p file1 file2
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1
  • In case you missed it. Commented Jun 15, 2015 at 22:08
2

Something like:

head -n8 file1 | cat - file2 > file2."$$" && mv file2."$$" file2
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2
  • @mikeserv... yes it worked... Commented Jun 15, 2015 at 15:20
  • 1
    also this "paste -sd'\n' file1 file2" worked. Thanks to both of you... @cuonglm Commented Jun 15, 2015 at 15:20
2 
cat file1 file2 > output_file

Cat is short for concatenate which is what you are trying to do. If you want to keep the results in file1, you could just add them to the end:

cat file2 >> file1

Notice that in the first case output_file will be truncated (using >). Using a double will append (>>)

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1

With ed

ed file2 <<END
0r file1
w
q
END

at line "0", read in the file "file1", save and exit

As a one-liner: printf "%s\n" "0r file1" w q | ed file2

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