[Tutor] concatenating files

[Jay Deiman]

Bala subramanian wrote:
> Hai,
> 
> I have file1.dat,file2.dat...file 300.dat  in one directory. I want to 
> concatenate all the files in a single file  (total.dat) with a string 
> "END" separating the file contents.
> my total.dat should be
> file1.dat contents
> END
> file2.dat contents
> END
> ----
> ----
> file300.dat.
> 
> now i have another 400 such *.dat files in another directory whose 
> contents i hve to append to "total.dat", how can i do this task. i need 
> to do something like, updating the file total.dat without overwritting it.
> 
> Thanks,
> Bala

This should about do it:

-------------------------------------

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys , os , glob

startDir = ''
totalFile = '/path/to/total.dat'

if len(sys.argv) > 1 and os.path.isdir(sys.argv[1]):
     startDir = sys.argv[1]
else:
     print 'Usage: %s <startdir>' % os.path.basename(sys.argv[0])
     sys.exit(1)

tfh = open(totalFile , 'a')
for f in glob.glob(os.path.join(startDir , '*.dat')):
     tfh.write('%s contents\n' % f)
     tfh.write(open(f).read())
     tfh.write('\nEND\n')
tfh.close()

-------------------------------------

All you have to do is set "totalFile" to your main output file and then 
call the script as "scriptname.py /path/to/datfile/directory".

-- 
Jay Deiman

\033:wq!