Re: [tlug] Adding text to the beginning of a file

[Scott Robbins <scottro@example.com>]

On Sat, Mar 17, 2007 at 10:32:27AM +0900, Dave M G wrote:
> Arwyn,
> 
> 1. Can I use cat to prepend the contents of a variable in the shell script? I 
> tried this:
> TEXT="This is text"
> cat $TEXT temp.file >> new.file

Rather than cat I think you want echo for a variable.  
The cat command will echo the contents of a file

cat $TEXT (in zsh, behavior will be similar in others)
this is text no such file or directory.

echo $TEXT
this is text

echo $TEXT > file1; cat file1.

In your case, a very kludgy way to do it might be 
echo $TEXT > new.file; cat temp.file >> new.file

-- 

Scott Robbins

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