Combining multiple text files into one

I have searched the world wide web high and low, and can't seem to find any solution for my problem! I have multiple text files that I would like to combine.

It's easier to show examples than to explain exactly why I'm trying to do.

The first file looks like this:

John
Paul
Mark
Sam
Herold

This file serves as a "primary key".

The rest of the files contain data for each item like this. A program generates this data into a new file each hour.

4
10
20
5
200

I'm most familiar with windows batch files, so I tried to write something like this:

for /f "tokens=*" %%A in (file1.txt) do 
    (for /f "tokens=*" %%B in (file2.txt) do (echo %%A,%%B>>combined.txt))

Unfortunately that writes every value to every person. If this would be working as expected, the end result would be like this:

John,4,2,6,9,1,2,5,6,12,51,53,3,6,7,8,1,4,7,2,743,21,4,7,5
Paul,10,5,6,1,7,9,34,56,1,76,48,23,222,12,54,67,23,652,1,6,71,3,6,4

and so on.

The software I am using presents the data in this format, and cannot be changed. I am open to any and all suggestions.

Solution 1:

You may read several input files in a Batch program via the standard handles. Remember that 0 is Stdin, 1 is Stdout and 2 is Stderr, but this leaves handles 3 to 9 available! The Batch file below do a file merge with the contents of two files; of course, up to 8 files can be combined with this method.

@echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
Rem First file is read with FOR /F command
Rem Second file is read via standard handle 3
3< file2.txt (for /F "delims=" %%a in (file1.txt) do (
   Rem Read next line from file2.txt
   set /P line2=<&3
   Rem Echo lines of both files
   echo %%a,!line2!
))

Further details here: http://www.dostips.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3126

Solution 2:

The unix command paste maybe what you're looking for. Also see this question on StackOverflow.

Solution 3:

You could just do:

paste -d, file*.txt > combined.txt

if you have paste available. You may need to install cygwin, or work on a *nix machine. (You did say you are open to all suggestions!) This relies on the data files being named sequentially. If you want to tweak the order, you can spell it out instead of using the glob.