files with same name in different folders

Question

I am looking for a command line that can do some operations on two files that have the same names but in different folders.

for example if

folder A contains files 1.txt, 2.txt, 3.txt, …
folder B contains files 1.txt, 2.txt, 3.txt, …

I would like to concatenate the two files A/1.txt and B/1.txt, and A/2.txt and B/2.txt, …

I'm looking for a shell command to do that:

if file name in A is equal the file name in B then: 
    cat A/1.txt B/1.txt
end if

for all files in folders A and B, if only names are matched.

Where do you want the output of the cat to go? Your example goes to stdout but I wasn't sure if that's your intention. Or do you have a 3rd file for each pair? — lurker
– lurker, Commented Jun 24, 2013 at 17:08

simonzack · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-24 17:27:07Z

6

Try this to get the files which have names in common:

cd dir1
find . -type f | sort > /tmp/dir1.txt
cd dir2
find . -type f | sort > /tmp/dir2.txt
comm -12 /tmp/dir1.txt /tmp/dir2.txt

Then use a loop to do whatever you need:

for filename in "$(comm -12 /tmp/dir1.txt /tmp/dir2.txt)"; do
    cat "dir1/$filename"
    cat "dir2/$filename"
done

edited Jun 24, 2013 at 17:27

answered Jun 24, 2013 at 17:18

simonzack

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1 Comment

tripleee Over a year ago

You hardly need the temporary files or comm. Just loop over files in dir1 and skip the ones which are not also in dir2.

clt60 · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-24 20:11:13Z

6

For simple things maybe will be enough the next syntax:

cat ./**/1.txt

or you can simply write

cat ./{A,B,C}/1.txt

e.g.

$ mkdir -p A C B/BB
$ touch ./{A,B,B/BB,C}/1.txt
$ touch ./{A,B,C}/2.txt

gives

./A/1.txt
./A/2.txt
./B/1.txt
./B/2.txt
./B/BB/1.txt
./C/1.txt
./C/2.txt

and

echo ./**/1.txt

returns

./A/1.txt ./B/1.txt ./B/BB/1.txt ./C/1.txt

so

cat ./**/1.txt

will run the cat with the above arguments... or,

echo ./{A,B,C}/1.txt

will print

./A/1.txt ./B/1.txt ./C/1.txt #now, without the B/BB/1.txt

and so on...

answered Jun 24, 2013 at 20:11

clt60

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Comments

gniourf_gniourf · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-24 17:43:37Z

4

Will loop through all files in folder A, and if a file in B with same name exists, will cat both:

for fA in A/*; do
    fB=B/${f##*/}
    [[ -f $fA && -f $fB ]] && cat "$fA" "$fB"
done

Pure bash, except the cat part, of course.

edited Jun 24, 2013 at 17:43

answered Jun 24, 2013 at 17:37

gniourf_gniourf

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