how to select, copy columns of different file to form new files

Question

I have four files each contain daily station data.

• file 1: prec
• file 2: minT
• file 3: maxT
• file 4: wind

Here prec, minT, maxT and wind are files that store values of prec, minT, maxT and wind for stations 1 through n.

I want to store the data for each station like:

for station 1: prec minT maxT wind 
    station 2: prec minT maxT wind
    .
    .
    .
    .
    station n: prec minT maxT wind

EDIT #1

My four data fies look like as follows:

Prec

1        2        3        4        5        6        7        8
0        0        0        0        0        0        0        0
0.254        0.254        0.254        0.254        0.254        0.254        0.254        0.254
0        0        0        0        0        0        0        0

Tmin

1          2          3          4          5          6          7          8
-23.349        -23.339        -23.327        -23.316        -23.303        -23.291        -23.278        -23.266
-23.682        -23.683        -23.685        -23.687        -23.689        -23.692        -23.695        -23.698
-24.302        -24.301        -24.3        -24.299        -24.299        -24.299        -24.3        -24.302

Tmax

 1         2         3         4         5         6         7         8
-17.087        -17.082        -17.077        -17.072        -17.066        -17.06        -17.053        -17.046
-20.082        -20.095        -20.109        -20.124        -20.14        -20.157        -20.174        -20.191
-20.48        -20.481        -20.483        -20.485        -20.486        -20.488        -20.489        -20.49

wind

1        2        3        4        5        6        7        8
0        0        0        0        0        0        0        0
1.778        1.778        1.778        1.778        1.778        1.778        1.778        1.778
1.652        1.653        1.654        1.654        1.655        1.656        1.657        1.658

I want to format the data file for each point it's named with (that is for points 1 to 8) as below:

1

0        -23.349        -17.087        0
0.254        -23.682        -20.082        0
0        -24.302        -20.48        1.778

2

0        -23.339        -17.082        0
0.254      -23.683        -20.095        0
0        -24.301        -20.481        1.778

...and so on... to n.

Where the columns in each file would be: nprec, nTmin, nTmax, and nwind.

Solution

I think you could do this with paste, and possibly join.

paste file1 file2 > temp1
paste temp1 file3 > temp2
paste tmpe2 file4 > final

That should work if the files contain station 1 thru n data in order. If not, you will need to get the files aligned somehow. If the "stattion n" notation is part of every file, you should sort them:

sort -o file1 file1
sort -o file2 file2
... and so forth

Then, you could do join instead of paste as above. join has some tricky options about putting lines in output that don't have a match in the other file, so you may have to read the join man page very carefully and experiment a bit to get what you want.

Comments

[Jeff Hewitt]

I think the question is not very clear. Please supply examples of the contents of each of the 4 files and what you want the final result to look like.

[slm]

Can you add a sample row or 2 from each of those files? Do they include the date the telemetry data was acquired?

[slm]

Please double check what I've tried to clean up in your question still makes sense.

[AiB]

Thank you all for helping me. Problem solved successfully.

[slm]

@user45611 - wonderful. If you think this answer was helpful and/or solved your issue directly, please consider voting it up and accepting it.