Gfilui

I have .txt data from spectrometer with 800 lines and 5 columns. And I want to merge about 15 these files next to each other. So final .txt file should have 800 lines and 75 columns.

All .txt files looks like this:

Wave ;Sample ;Dark ;Reference;Absorbance
[nm] ;[counts] ;[counts] ;[counts] ;[A.U]
200.00; 34.647; -0.317; 79.668; 0.35734
201.00; 29.937; -21.220; 70.385; 0.25357
202.00; 48.826; -0.527; 99.657; 0.30721
203.00; 43.201; 4.165; 136.775; 0.53103
...

Desired file:

Wave ;Sample ;Dark ;Reference;Absorbance; Wave ;Sample ;Dark ;Reference;Absorbance
[nm] ;[counts] ;[counts] ;[counts] ;[A.U]; [nm] ;[counts] ;[counts] ;[counts] ;[A.U]
200.00; 34.647; -0.317; 79.668; 0.35734; 200.00; 34.647; -0.317; 79.668; 0.35734;
201.00; 29.937; -21.220; 70.385; 0.25357; 201.00; 29.937; -21.220; 70.385; 0.25357
202.00; 48.826; -0.527; 99.657; 0.30721; 202.00; 48.826; -0.527; 99.657; 0.30721
203.00; 43.201; 4.165; 136.775; 0.53103; 203.00; 43.201; 4.165; 136.775; 0.53103

I tried:

cat *.txt > file.txt

But this add .txt files like new lines not like new columns.

You’re looking for the paste utility, e.g.

paste *.txt > file.txt

Check its manual page for details, most notably the -d option to specify the delimiter.

Simple example

I set the separator to 'space' and eliminate multiple spaces.

$ cat file-1
ett tu tre
1 2 3
11 22 33
$ cat file-2
fyra fem sex
4 5 6
44 55 66

$ cat file-3
sju atta nio
7 8 9
77 88 99

$ paste file-?
ett tu tre fyra fem sex sju atta nio
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
11 22 33 44 55 66 77 88 99

$ paste -d ' ' file-?
ett tu tre fyra fem sex sju atta nio
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
11 22 33 44 55 66 77 88 99

$ paste -d ' ' file-? | tr -s ' ' ' '
ett tu tre fyra fem sex sju atta nio
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
11 22 33 44 55 66 77 88 99

Suggested command line

Maybe you want to eliminate the spaces? You want to keep semicolon as separator. Try with the following command line

paste -d ';' input-filespec-with-wildcard | sed 's/ //g' > output-file

where input-filespec-with-wildcard could be *.txt (if the files to be merged are the only txt files in the directory).

Edit (using the real data)

• Convert the files to unix/linux text format, CarriageReturn + LineFeed --> LineFeed with dos2unix



• 
  

  Remove blank lines with the following command

  
  
  

  for i in *.TXT;do echo sed '/^$/'d "$i" > "$i/.TXT/.txt";done
  

  
  


• 
  

  Remove header lines with the following command

  
  
  

  for i in *.txt;do grep ';*;' "$i" > "$i/.txt/.txt1";done
  

  
  
  

  (Header lines do not contain at least two semicolons.)

  
  


• 
  

  Merge the files with the following command

  
  
  

  paste -d ';' *.txt1 | sed 's/ //g' > merged-file.txt
  

  
  

I read the merged file into LibreOffice Calc and used semicolon as separator. It looks like I think you want to have it. I hope it works for you according to these instructions. Otherwise please describe your remaining problem and tell me if you want me to upload 'my' merged-file.txt.

LibreOffice Calc

If you want to do it only once, you can do manually/visually in Libre Office Calc, by pasting the files into the spreadsheet. You can edit the positions in the spreadsheet and remove the lines, that create confusion.

I would say that it is rather easy to do it manually in LibreOffice Calc, but if this is something that you will do many times or with a great number of files, it is better to use and maybe refine the command line method.