bash shell scripting combining *.txt into one file

Question

What is the quickest and most pragmatic way to combine all *.txt file in a directory into one large text file?

Currently I'm using windows with cygwin so I have access to BASH.

Windows shell command would be nice too but I doubt there is one.

Answer 1

This appends the output to all.txt

cat *.txt >> all.txt

This overwrites all.txt

cat *.txt > all.txt

Answer 2

You can use Windows shell copy to concatenate files.

C:\> copy *.txt outputfile

From the help:

To append files, specify a single file for destination, but multiple files for source (using wildcards or file1+file2+file3 format).

Answer 3

The Windows shell command type can do this:

type *.txt >outputfile

Type type command also writes file names to stderr, which are not captured by the > redirect operator (but will show up on the console).

Answer 4

Just remember, for all the solutions given so far, the shell decides the order in which the files are concatenated. For Bash, IIRC, that's alphabetical order. If the order is important, you should either name the files appropriately (01file.txt, 02file.txt, etc...) or specify each file in the order you want it concatenated.

$ cat file1 file2 file3 file4 file5 file6 > out.txt

Answer 5

DIR="/your/dir/here/";
PREFIX="txt sh";
FILENAME="/allmyfiles.txt";
cd $DIR;
touch $FILENAME;
for a in $PREFIX; do
for b in $(ls $DIR$PREFIX); do
echo "    
# Start $b
$(cat $b)
# End $b" >> $FILENAME;
done
done;

;)

EDIT: Store/Append directly to the file

Answer 6

the most pragmatic way with the shell is the cat command. other ways include,

awk '1' *.txt > all.txt
perl -ne 'print;' *.txt > all.txt

Answer 7

all of that is nasty....

ls | grep *.txt | while read file; do cat $file >> ./output.txt; done;

easy stuff.