Add a header to a tab delimited file

Question

I\'d like to add a header to a tab-delimited file but I am not sure how to do it in one line in linux.

Let us say my file is:

Answer 1

Using sed no need of temp file

sed -i "s#^#name\tage\tuniversity\tcity#g#"

Demo:

$ cat file1.txt
roger\t18\tcolumbia\tnew york\n
albert\t21\tdartmouth\tnew london\n
etc...
$ sed -i "s#^#name\tage\tuniversity\tcity#g#" file1.txt $ cat file1.txt
name    age     university      cityroger\t18\tcolumbia\tnew york\n
name    age     university      cityalbert\t21\tdartmouth\tnew london\n
name    age     university      cityetc...
$