Concatenate multiple files but include filename as

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

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

If you want to replace those ugly ==> <== with something else

tail -n +1 *.txt | sed -e 's/==>/\n###/g' -e 's/<==/###/g' >> "files.txt"

explanation:

tail -n +1 *.txt - output all files in folder with header

sed -e 's/==>/\n###/g' -e 's/<==/###/g' - replace ==> with new line + ### and <== with just ###

>> "files.txt" - output all to a file

Answer 3

you can use this simple command instead of using a for loop,

ls -ltr | awk '{print $9}' | xargs head

Answer 4

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 *

Answer 5

This method will print filename and then file contents:

tail -f file1.txt file2.txt

Output:

==> file1.txt <==
contents of file1.txt ...
contents of file1.txt ...

==> file2.txt <==
contents of file2.txt ...
contents of file2.txt ...

Answer 6

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.