simple scripting help

[Doug_3]

Hi all, I need a quick tip on scripting this:
I want to add one line of text to a flat file as a new first row and save the resulting file with the same name. My meager attempts at cat result in the text at the end of the file. I've tried various incarnations of cat and redirection with no success. I don't want to use cp or mv.

Text to add is 6-8 char long as a variable.

New Data:
$mydata = "mytext"

Original File:
$filename

Contents of $filename:
line1 of orig file
line2 of orig file
line3 etc etc etc

Desired contents resulting file to be saved as $filename:
mytext
line1 of orig file
line2 of orig file
line3 etc etc etc

Thanks in advance,
Doug

[Pete Randall]

Doug,

There's certainly more elegant ways to do this, but a simple approach like this should work:

echo $mydate > somefile
cat $filename >> somefile
mv somefile $filename


Pete

[Patrick Wallek]

Well, this is fairly dirty, but it would work:

#!/usr/bin/sh

mydata="mytext"

echo $mydata > /tmp/file

cat /tmp/file $filename > /tmp/file1

mv /tmp/file1 $filename
rm /tmp/file

[Sundar_7]

Hi Doug,

# echo $mydata > /tmp/newfile
# cat $filename >> /tmp/newfile
# mv /tmp/newfile $filename

--Sundar

[john korterman]

Hi,

maybe you can use this:

# TEXT="Hej Doug"
# echo "$TEXT" |cat - $filename

regards,
John K.

[Dave La Mar · Accepted solution]

Doug-
Just answered similar yesterday i.e.
#!/usr/bin/ksh
# Test a prepend to file
# 1i means insert at line one.

echo "Keep on keeping on." | read STRING_TO_INSERT
string="$STRING_TO_INSERT"

ed << EOF >/dev/null
e /home/dlamar/work/test1.fil
1i
$string
.
w /home/dlamar/work/test1.fil
q
EOF

Best regards,
dl