Merging two files by ignoring a line with AWK

Question

I have two files: file 1:

file 2:

hola
l m  n o p q

Now I want to merge them in one single file by ignoring the header of file 2 like this:

a 1 2 3 l m n o p q 
b 1 2 3
c 1 2 3
d 1 2 3

Does anyone have an idea how to do this?

Akshay Hegde · Answer 1 · 2017-09-29T06:47:24.263

4

Same expected output can be achieved without awk also

$ cat file1
a 1 2 3 
b 1 2 3
c 1 2 3
d 1 2 3

$ cat file2
hola
l m  n o p q 

$ pr -mtJS' '  file1 <(tail -n +2 file2)
a 1 2 3  l m  n o p q
b 1 2 3 
c 1 2 3 
d 1 2 3 

$ paste -d ' '  file1 <(tail -n +2 file2)
a 1 2 3  l m  n o p q 
b 1 2 3
c 1 2 3
d 1 2 3

edited Sep 29 '17 at 06:47

answered Sep 29 '17 at 06:42

Akshay Hegde

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1

Nice solutions Akshay. – RavinderSingh13 Sep 29 '17 at 07:07

CWLiu · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-29T06:43:57.470

2

$ awk 'NR==FNR{if(NR>1)a[NR-1]=$0;next}{print $0,a[FNR]}' file2 file1
a 1 2 3 l m  n o p q 
b 1 2 3
c 1 2 3
d 1 2 3

Brief explanation,

NR==FNR{if(NR>1)a[NR-1]=$0;next}: in file2, omit the header and save from the second record to a[NR-1]. Note: this would also work as the lines in file2 grow up
print $0,a[FNR]: print the combination of the content of $0 in file1 and a[FNR]. FNR would be the record number in file1.

edited Sep 29 '17 at 06:43

answered Sep 29 '17 at 06:33

CWLiu

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1
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Thanks! It works, but in my output I see 3l. No space between 3 and l. – Wara Sep 29 '17 at 06:41
@wara, see my modification. This should with a space between 3 and l. – CWLiu Sep 29 '17 at 06:44
I have solved the problem by adding "\t", here '="\t"$0;next' – Wara Sep 29 '17 at 07:00

Merging two files by ignoring a line with AWK

2 Answers2