Command Line File Handling and ASCII Tools

conc - Concatenate Text Files

The command conc contatenates text files.

It accepts the same wildcards and file selection options as the d directory command.

Example (Windows)

> conc chapter*.txt -output=all.txt

Example (Linux)

> conc '***/*.lis' -min_size=1 -since=today -header

Displays all non-empty .lis files that have been created today to standard output.

Text Files With Windows Or Linux Line Endings

Text files on Windows are normally encoded so that the lines of text are separated by a carriage-return/newline character pair ('\r\n'). Under Linux, lines are normally separated by a newline character only ('\n').

conc will read either kind of text file under both Windows and Linux, and convert it to the native encoding. The output file will always be on the native format for the platform.

Parameters

Input File Specification

Example (Linux)

> conc intro.txt 'chapter*.txt' appendix.txt -output=all.txt

The parameter is one or more input file specifications.

conc accepts the same wildcards and file selection options as the cop copy command. You can specify more than one filename, and the filenames may contain wildcards.

If you give a list of filenames, the files will be concatenated in the order they are given.

Example

> conc -header foo.txt bar
########################################################################

########  /home/chris/foo.txt
This is a file called "foo.txt"

########  /home/chris/bar.txt
This is "bar.txt"

Output Option

-output

Example

> conc a.xyz -output=b.xyz

Options

-output [= filename]
-o [= filename]

Specifies an output file. If the option is not present, output will be sent to standard output (con:). This makes it convenient to pipe the output from conc to another program.

If the -output option is given without a filename, the default filename is a.tmp in the current working directory.

The output file will always be a text file with line endings encoded on the format that is native for the platform. This means that the lines of text are separated by a carriage-return/newline character pair ('\r\n') under Windows, and by a newline character only ('\n') under Linux.

See File Version Numbers: Output Files for a description of how the version numbers work for output files.

Control Options

These options control how the output should be formatted.

Example

> conc '***/*.txt' -header

Options

-number	Prints the line number in front of each record in each file.
-header	Prints a header with the filename for each new input file.

-number

Prints the line number in front of each record in each file.

Default is -nonumber

-header

This option controls if a header should be printed out for each new input file. It can assume the values yes, no, or auto.

-header	Print a header with the filename for each new file where the pattern is found.
-noheader	Do not print any headers. This is the default unless the -number option has been specified.
-header=auto	Print headers if there is more than one input file, but do not print any header if there is only one input file. This setting is the default when the -number option has been specified.

Suggested alias

alias t='conc -header=auto -noverbose'

The alias t (for "type") copies one or more files to standard output, and writes a header for each file if there is more than one.

Example

> t *.txt
########################################################################

########  /home/chris/bar.txt
This is "bar.txt"

########  /home/chris/foo.txt
This is a file called "foo.txt"

Standard Options

File Selection Options

Example

> conc -header '***/*.lis' -since=today -min_size=1

Options

-since [= datetime]	Select files that were created on or after a certain date/time.
-before [= datetime]	Select file that were created before a certain date/time.
-min_size [= size]	Specify a minimum file size in bytes, Mb, or some other unit
-max_size [= size]	Specify a maximum file size .
-directories [= only/also/not]	List directory files (only/also/not) . Default is also.
-hidden [= only/also/not]	List hidden files (only/also/not). Default is not.
-nodefault	Do not add any default wildcards or other filename parts to the filename.
-exclude [= filespec]	Exclude files that match the file specification given as option value. If the option value is enclosed in parenthesis, it can contain a full file specification, including recursive file selection options.

These options control which files are selected. See File Selection Options for more information.

Help and Information Options

Example

> conc '*.dat' -output=out.tmp -noverbose

Options

-help -h -?	Print out a brief help text with a summary of each of the different options, and exit from the program.
-version	Show the name and version number of the program, and exit. This option must be written out in full, and cannot be abbreviated.
-verbose -v -statistics -noverbose	Specify the amount of informational messages.
-warning -nowarning -noerror	Specify the level of error reporting.