Question

I have a folder that is filled with sub folders of past dates (20120601 for example), inside each date folder there is a file named test.txt, along with another file named example.txt. How can I merge all the test.txt files into one?

I am trying to do this in Windows and have access to Windows PowerShell and Windows Command Processor (cmd.exe). What would be the best way to do this?

My hierarchy would look something like this:

\Data
     \20120601
           test.txt
           example.txt
     \20120602
           test.txt
           example.txt
     \20120603
           test.txt
           example.txt
     \20120604
           test.txt
           example.txt
     \20120605
           test.txt
           example.txt

I would imagine it is something like

copy *\test.txt alltestfiles.txt

Is that possible? Can you specify a wildcard for a directory?

Answer 1

Fairly easy, actually:

Get-ChildItem \Data -Recurse -Include test.txt |
  Get-Content |
  Out-File -Encoding UTF8 alltestfiles.txt

or shorter:

ls \Data -r -i test.txt | gc | sc -enc UTF8 alltestfile.txt

This will first gather all test.txt files, then read their contents and finalle write out the combined contents into the new file.