how to append text files to a bigger file?

[forever]

hello friends. i have a query. i have 16 text files(.txt) and i want to make one big text file with all the files appended into one big file, like if there is l1.txt ...l16.txt, i want one l.txt = l1+l2+..l16, pardon the bad expression, is this possible? please suggest something, thank you

[blueshift]

Yes you can..using Command windows.

Goto Run>cmd. Then go to the location where your txt files are located using cd command. Then give the command:
copy /y 1.txt+2.txt+3.txt final.txt
final.txt is the name of final txt file.

[ilugd]

first of all, back up your files somewhere else, then try
(I assume you are using windows-type this in the command line)
copy 1.txt + 2.txt + .... + 16.txt 1.txt

oops.. I guess I didn't refresh to check if the post was updated.

[sakumar79]

Actually, if you can use wildcards * and ? too, so you can do "copy *.txt new.txt".

Arun

[forever]

hey thanks for the quick replies guys, thank you :

[Styler0001]

Originally Posted by sakumar79

Actually, if you can use wildcards * and ? too, so you can do "copy *.txt new.txt".

This worked for me. But is there a way to append some text between each text file? If TEXT1.TXT has the following as its content:

cars
bikes
scooters

and TEXT2.TXT has:

planes
trains
automobiles

can it be made to output:

cars
bikes
scooters
------------------------------
planes
trains
automobiles

Otherwise, it just crams each file together and makes it hard to differentiate between each one.

The reason I ask is because I've got a couple hundred text files I want to merge and doing it by hand is going to be quite time-consuming.

[ilugd]

create a new file called spacer.txt and do a copy like this
copy 1.txt + spacer.txt + 2.txt full.txt

[Styler0001]

That's not really feasible. As I said in the last sentence, I've got a couple HUNDRED text files I need to merge.

[navjotjsingh]

You just need a single spacer.txt buddy? Howcome the procedure above mentioned by ilugd time consuming?

[ilugd]

you will need to do batch scripting. something like shell scripting.