new to unix

[ashmatusunrai]

I'm having trouble with unix shell script. I need to "Cat every file (in D) whose name starts with ``test'' into a file (in D) called ``bigtest''". So far I have:
cat test*.txt > bigtest.txt But its not working the way it needs to. If someone could help me, I'd really appreciate it!

[sicarie]

I'm having trouble with unix shell script. I need to "Cat every file (in D) whose name starts with ``test'' into a file (in D) called ``bigtest''". So far I have:
cat test*.txt > bigtest.txt But its not working the way it needs to. If someone could help me, I'd really appreciate it!

How is it working right now?

[sicarie]

How is it working right now?

Right, that was a dumb question - do you have to use 'cat' or can you use another tool like ls or grep?

I suppose you might be able to cat the directory that those are in, but you'd still have to pass it to grep or something to handle the test*

[rdettwyler]

What you need is a FOR loop to get each of the files you need, cat each of them and APPEND ">>" to the target file (if you just write ">", each will overwrite the next):

> for i in `ls test*`
do
cat $i >> bigtest.txt
done
>