Try the following examples:

cat -n simpleText.txt

This will display and number the lines of simpleText.txt (or any ASCII text file).

cat -n simpleText.txt >> simpleText-numbered.txt

This demonstrates usage by example and produces a hard-copy output that you can work with later.

Now try opening a shell terminal and experimenting on your own:

cat -n .bashrc > Bashrc.numbered
more -e Bashrc.numbered

This may provide ideas for extending the usefulness of this approach. Linux offers many different ways to accomplish the same task.

Note: a single redirection is usually sufficient. For example:

cat -n .bash* >> BashAll
more -e BashAll

What happens here is that the output now contains a numbered listing of all files beginning with .bash, such as:

.bashrc
.bash_profile
.bash_logout
.bash_aliases

assuming these files are located in your home directory. Together, they help form the complete Bash environment.

Enjoy.

@Kunal,

Thank you so much for your kind words – I’m really glad you found the article helpful!

To compare two text files and highlight the differences, you can use the diff command in Linux, which is a powerful tool that shows line-by-line changes between two files.

diff file1.txt file2.txt

If you prefer a more readable and colorized output, you can try:

diff --color file1.txt file2.txt

Or use vimdiff for a side-by-side comparison:

vimdiff file1.txt file2.txt

If you’re looking for a GUI tool, meld is great too.

Your article was very informative, and will be very useful to me. I have been looking for a means of comparing two text files and highlighting the differences between them.

Can you help?