How to add text to the beginning of all files in a folder?

Question

I have a folder with 1,000 small text files in it, and I need to modify the files and add 7 zeroes to the beginning of every one. After I do this I'll be able to cat them all together. Is there an easy way to do this in terminal?

Is [this](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6329505/how-to-rename-all-file-in-a-folder-with-a-suffix-in-a-single-unix-command) what you're looking for? — Alex Kalicki, Apr 28 '13 at 18:34
@Snowsickle No, I don't need to change the name, just the contents. — user2329778, Apr 28 '13 at 18:36
@Beta Nothing other than the text files that I need to edit. — user2329778, Apr 28 '13 at 18:39
Related (even duplicate): http://askubuntu.com/questions/11031/add-a-string-to-a-text-file-from-terminal — Ionică Bizău, Apr 28 '13 at 18:39

Chris Seymour · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-28T19:17:56.823

6

Find all files in the current directory and insert 0000000 at the beginning of the file using sed:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -exec sed -i.bk '1i \
0000000' {} \;

This will also create .bk file for each file in directory. If you are happy with the result just rm *.bk to delete the back up files.

edited Apr 28 '13 at 19:17

answered Apr 28 '13 at 18:38

Chris Seymour

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Didn't work; gave 'invalid command code'. – user2329778 Apr 28 '13 at 18:42
Not `-i` but `-e` or better nothing (just `sed '1 i'`) – GoZoner Apr 28 '13 at 18:45
Tested on Linux not Mac, edited to make Mac friendly. @GoZoner no, `-i`. – Chris Seymour Apr 28 '13 at 18:48
1

@sudo_O Anyway to get the zeros on the same line as the text? Sorry, in a bit over my head here :) – user2329778 Apr 28 '13 at 19:01

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 28 '13 at 18:43

4

Paste this in a .sh file and execute it. Put the path to your file directory instead of the example one.

#!/bin/bash
FILES="./files/*"

for f in $FILES
do
    echo '0000000' | cat - $f > temp && mv temp $f
done

answered Apr 28 '13 at 18:43

Nicola Miotto

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How to add text to the beginning of all files in a folder?

2 Answers2