Concatenate files

I want write a small bit of perl to read two files, file1.txt and file2.txt and concatenate them and create and output them to files.gz.

I need to insert a delimiter "\del" between file1.txt and file2.txt.

Any suggestions guys?

> Any suggestions guys?
Post some effort demonstrating what you know so far.

If it's only as far as making a copy of a single file, then we could help with specific issues.
If you can read 2 files, but can't get the delimiter to work, we could help with that as well.
Maybe you can do everything except the .gz bit.

As it stands, it looks like you're after a free answer on a plate, with no effort on your part.

Sorry dude.

open(FILE1,">>file1.txt" ) || die("Cannot Open File");
print FILE1 "\\del\n";
open(FILE2,">>file2.txt" ) || die("Cannot Open File");;
close (FILE1);
close(FILE2);

1. I know this works as in it inserts the delimeter, haven't obv concatenated files yet. Should i not read the file1.txt into an array and try find the last line, add delimiter and then try and append file2.

2. Then pipe this to a gzip file.

Your approach modifies one of the input files.
Try reading from both files (one after the other), and write to a third file, which is then gzipped.

Does it have to be done in Perl? Since you're using GZip, I'm assuming you're on a *nix platform. You could just use the following:

Ok here goes;

open(FILE1,"file1" ) || die("Cannot Open File1");
open(FILE2, "file2" ) || die("Cannot Open File2");
open(FILE3, "file3" ) || die("Cannot Open File3");
my @files;
my $delimiter = "\del\n";
push(@files, <FILE3>,$delimiter,<FILE2>,$delimiter,<FILE1>);
close (FILE1);
close (FILE2);
close (FILE3);

Do i have to write this to a third file -then gzip, or can I not just send the concatenation of this 3 files to a .gz file.

So you're not limited to two files then?

You've a couple of potential difficulties with this one: first of all you're creating the entire concatenated file in memory (in the @files array). Secondly, by using 'push', it'll likely be slower than just a straightforward assignment (as you're not adding to existing content in the array). Better to just do:

Thirdly, you're now limited to exactly three files. Depending on the exact nature of what you're trying to do, I'd general favour a more general approach that could deal with any number of files.

Again using the command line, you can use a Perl one-liner and a pipe to achieve this:

http://search.cpan.org/~nwclark/per...ib/File/Copy.pm might make life a little easier