[plug] appending files

[Leon Brooks]

On Sat, 21 Sep 2002 12:37, Arie Hol wrote:
> At 02:22 PM 20-09-2002 +0800, you wrote:
>> So - you can go ;
>> $ cat *.log.gz > biglog.gz

>> ...rather than ;
>> $ gunzip *.log.gz
>> $ cat *.log | gzip > biglog.gz

> Excuse my ignorance on this one - but wouldn't it be better to use '>>'
> instead of '>' to cat the two files together, I have the impression that
> using '>' will overwrite the target and cause a subsequent loss of its
> contents.

Yes. Note that the target is not among the sources here, so > is probably 
appropriate. >> would also work (identically if biglog.gz didn't already 
exist) but if biglog.gz already exists and contains part of the data now 
being concatenated, you will wind up with multiple copies of the data.

Cheers; Leon