Is there a GUI 'cat'-like program for any platform?

What I am looking for is a way to recombine split files without using cat. Is there such a beast?

It could run on Linux or Windows or Mac OS.

warren

Posted 2011-07-12T18:27:53.637

Reputation: 8 599

2Out of pure interest: Why not use cat on OS X / Linux? It's specifically made for concatenating split files. Or is it the GUI you're looking for? – slhck – 2011-07-12T18:43:32.253

@slhck - cat works great: but I'm still looking for a non-commandline edition - hence the "GUI" part of my inquiry :) ..it'd be really nice to be able to drop a batch of files into a window, order them as desired, then come back when it's done – warren – 2011-07-12T18:51:53.723

Answers

HJSplit allows users to split and join files. It comes with its own graphical interface, and has versions for Windows and Linux. This page on the HJSplit website shows alternatives for Macs, which are considered to be compatible with HJSplit.

Isxek

Posted 2011-07-12T18:27:53.637

Reputation: 3 785

I can't figure out how to give the app a list of arbitrary files - it seems to only understand its own split format :( – warren – 2011-07-12T19:25:26.010

AFAIK, it usually joins files that came from the same filename (e.g., "archive.zip.001," "archive.zip.002," etc. to be joined into "archive.zip"). That's why it provides a way to compute the checksum as well, to check the split files' integrity before re-combining them into one whole file. – Isxek – 2011-07-12T19:31:18.460

You need zenity sudo apt-get install zenity (for ubuntu/debian users and similar) for this to work, but there are similar programs, to wrap GUI-actions in a script, (i.e.: dialog).

This script asks the user for a file (or a group of files) from a first directory in a GUI-file-selection-dialog, and stores the file names in the variable in1, similar for in2, then asks the user in a GUI-dialog for a target file (name and dir), where to cat the result. The last line in the script actually uses cat to cat the files together.

#!/bin/bash
#
# cat multiple files from 2 directories, select them by gui
# (c) GPLv3
#
in1=$(zenity --file-selection --multiple)
in2=$(zenity --file-selection --multiple) 
out=$(zenity --file-selection --save --confirm-overwrite)
cat ${in1//|/ }  ${in2//|/ } > $out

Save the script, make it executable, and, depending on your desktop environment, you may link it with an icon on your desktop, or make a link in the application menu.

It will work for multiple selections in two directories, but you have to change it for 3 or more directories. You could modify it, to ask for the number of directories/files before selecting them.

user unknown

Posted 2011-07-12T18:27:53.637

Reputation: 1 623

so - this is still a command-line app that just happens to wrap around cat with this particular example? – warren – 2011-07-21T18:44:18.473

Well - you save it, and make a starter in your panel, or combine a hotkey to it. Shall I explain how to move it into the path (sudo) or how to set the path to include a directory where you have write access. You can start OpenOffice, Gimp, Firefox - every command from the commandline. That doesn't make it a command line app. A command line app would run in the command line, work without X. – user unknown – 2011-07-21T19:56:36.640

1I'm not seeing how this solves the problem. Perhaps you could edit your answer to be a bit more detailed about how to actually concatenate files from the GUI using this method? – nhinkle – 2011-07-21T22:37:38.157

1Thanks for updating your question - the instructions are now much more clear, and I can see how it would actually provide a GUI. Much better now. – nhinkle – 2011-08-04T18:53:39.387

FFSJ consists of two main programs: File Splitter and File Joiner. File Splitter enables you to split a large file into small chunks which are easy to be sent and stored, while File Joiner allows you to join these split parts together so that the original file is restored.

Also, There is this program that concatenate audio and video.

raym0nd

Posted 2011-07-12T18:27:53.637

Reputation: 131

an arbitrary type of file list: anything that may have been made with split (see question) – warren – 2011-07-12T19:26:09.177

@warren I edited my post please recheck. – raym0nd – 2011-07-12T19:40:11.667

seems to have the same limitations as @lsxek's 'HJSplit' :( – warren – 2011-07-13T00:58:57.370