Join lines from two files

Question

I'm trying to combine two different files, one called itemnum and another called items.

itemnum contains:

ItemNumber
1201
1221
1320
1340
1410

and items contains:

Item
Lobby Furniture
Ballroom Specialties
Poolside Carts
Formal Dining Specials
Reservation Logs

I want to use join here right? So that the output looks like this:

ItemNumber:Item
1201:Lobby Furniture
1221:Ballroom Specialties
1320:Poolside Carts
1340:Formal Dining Specials
1410:Reservation Logs

I can't even figure out how to get them to join, let alone add the :

I tried join itemnum items > prodinfo, but that just gives me an empty file.

I guess you've misunderstood the join command. Check linux.die.net/man/1/join — ott--, Commented Aug 30, 2016 at 21:19
The join command joins files on a common key (which your files do not appear to have) - if you just want to join successive lines from each file side-by-side you can use the paste command instead e.g. paste -d\: itemnum items > prodinfo — steeldriver, Commented Aug 30, 2016 at 21:20

Hillsie · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-31 01:27:15Z

3

As mentioned : Join requires a key column and isn't the right command for what you are looking to do. Confirmed as @steeldriver says

paste -d : file1.txt file2.txt > filemerge.txt

answered Aug 31, 2016 at 1:27

Hillsie

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