How to use paste command for many files whose names are not numbers? (paste columns from each file to one file)

shell-script command-line paste

5,682

With bash 4

mapfile -t <list
paste "${MAPFILE[@]}" | column -s $'\t' -t

for the paste {list}/PQR/A/sum version of the question

mapfile -t <list
paste "${MAPFILE[@]/%//PQR/A/sum}" | column -s $'\t' -t

5,682

Ooker

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Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Ooker over 1 year
To paste many files, whose names are incremental numbers:
```
paste {1..8}| column -s $'\t' -t
```
- What if your files wasn't named by number, but only words?
- It can be up to ten files, what should I do?
In addition, you have a list of files that contains all the files you want.

So far, my approach is:
```
mkdir paste
j=0; while read i; do let j+=1; cp $i/ paste/$j; done<list;
cd paste; paste {1..8}| column -s $'\t' -t
```
I have no problem with this approach, I just want to ask if there is any shorter one.

Actually my files have the same name, just on different locations, for instance 1MUI/PQR/A/sum, 2QHK/PQR/A/sum, 2RKF/PQR/A/sum. The paste command should be paste {list}/PQR/A/sum. The list file is:
```
1MUI
2QHK
2RKF
...
```
Ooker almost 10 years

wow, you update your answer before I comment. Thanks a lot. Nevertheless, my folder contains more files and folders which don't relevant to my need, therefore I can't use *.
Ooker almost 10 years

so basically there is no way to shorten my code?
Mathias Begert almost 10 years

@Ooker, see the edit
Ooker almost 10 years

also, can you explain to me what the /%/ means?
Mathias Begert almost 10 years

@Ooker, that is used to add a suffix to every element of the MAPFILE array, for details refer this
Scott - Слава Україні almost 10 years

How is $(printf "%s " $(cat list)) any better than $(cat list)? (They both fail if filenames containing whitespace are present.)