> Assuming this is a real task and not a homework problem, then > I'd do it this way: > > $ cd [directory containing 50 test files] > $ (for file in *; do head -n11 $file | tail -n5; done) >/path/to/results-file.txt I'd use sed: sed -ns 7,11p /source/path/*.txt >/path/to/results.txt hard to get much more concise than that with any common tool :) -tkc