BAT file to read and copy bottom 16 lines from a text file to another one?

Question

I need to copy the bottom 16 lines from a text file to another text file. I need to do this procedure for all clients. At the client\'s location the text file will be common

Answer 1

You can download DOS ports of most Unix commands (for example here - pick any set of commands you like that includes tail)

After downloading, simply use tail -16 filename.txt

The benefit (to offset the effort of downloading/unpacking) is that you get a whole BUNDLE of really good Unix command line tools to use.

Answer 2

The more command can be used to extract the last n lines:

1. If a file, someFile.txt, contains 2000 lines then the last 16 lines can be extracted with ("/E +n: Start displaying the first file at line n"):

   more /e +1984 someFile.txt > lastLines.txt
   

2. The number of lines in someFile.txt can found as:

   for /f %%i in ('find /v /c "" ^< someFile.txt') do set /a lines=%%i
   

3. The call of more then becomes (still for this example, the last 16 lines):

   set /a startLine=%lines% - 16
   more /e +%startLine% someFile.txt > lastLines.txt
   

Answer 3

I adapted this useful code to append together 51 files and retain the 12 line header of the first file as follows:

REM Append 51 files and retain 12 line header of first file
REM  ------------------------------------------------------

REM Set number of files to combine    
set Nmbrfls=51   

REM copy the first file with the header 
copy file_1.txt combined.txt

REM Loop through the other 50 files (start at #2) appending to the combined
REM file using a temporary file to capture all but the the 12 header lines
REM than append the temporary file to the combined on each loop

for /l %%i in (2,1,%Nmbrfls%) do (
more /e +13 file_%%i.txt > temp.txt
copy /b combined.txt + temp.txt combined.txt
del temp.txt
)