Question

I have a file, which has data in one column and 200 rows (200*1).

I want to get this data in a single row with comma separated.

Example File

Paul
Pammy
Jacob
Robin 

Output

Paul, Pammy, Jacob, Robin

Answer 1

Using sed:

sed ':a;{N;s/\n/, /};ba' INPUT_FILE

Explanation:

I am no expert on sed, but this is what the above one-liner means:

1. :a

   :label command creates a named label a. This when used with ba branches to the label. This is useful for creating loops and escaping to the end of the script to print the current pattern space.

2. N

   N just appends the next line to the pattern space with \n.

3. s/\n/, /

   Since the new line has been appended to the pattern space with a \n, we use this substitution to replace the \n with a , and space as per the requirements of OP.

Test:

[jaypal:~/Temp] cat file
Paul
Pammy
Jacob
Robin

[jaypal:~/Temp] sed ':a;{N;s/\n/, /};ba' file
Paul, Pammy, Jacob, Robin