Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 3 - STEP BY STEP GUIDE Manual page 48

34 Chapter 3. Shell Prompt Basics
Figure 3-7. Joining Files and Redirecting Output
You can see that has added where ended.
cat home.txt sneakers.txt
3.8.2. Appending Standard Output
You can use output redirection to add new information to the end of an existing file. Similar to when
you used the symbol, you tell your shell to send the information somewhere other than standard
§
output.
However, when you use , you are adding information to a file, rather than replacing the contents
§ ¨ §
of a file entirely.
The best explanation is a demonstration. Take two files which have already been created
( and ) and join them by using the append output symbol. To add the
sneakers.txt home.txt
information in to the information already in , type:
home.txt sneakers.txt
cat home.txt sneakers.txt
©  ©
Now check the file using the command . The final output shows the contents of
cat sneakers.txt
at the end of the file:
home.txt
buy some sneakers
then go to the coffee shop
then buy some coffee
bring the coffee home
take off shoes
put on sneakers
make some coffee
relax!
The command you typed appended the output from the file to the file .
home.txt sneakers.txt
By appending the output, you save yourself time (and a bit of disk clutter) by using existing files,
rather than creating a new file.
Compare the results of the files and , and you can see that they are
sneakers.txt saturday.txt
identical. To make your comparison, type:
cat sneakers.txt; cat saturday.txt
The contents of both files are displayed — first , then (as shown in
sneakers.txt saturday.txt
Figure 3-8).