Insert text from one file into another text file

[raleigh3]

I would like to be able to insert the contents of a text file at the end of the host file.

I need that because my hosts file is frequently updated.

How can I do that?

Thanks.

[SeijiSensei]

cat file1 >> file2

Appends the contents of file1 to the bottom of file2. The double redirection (">>") means append. With only one redirection character (">") file2 would overwritten.

[raleigh3]

It does not work because it is root owned.

I tried

echo xx | sudo -S cat AddTo_hosts.txt >> /etc/hosts

[CatKiller]

It does not work because it is root owned.

What you need is for the part of the operation that writes to the file (not necessarily the part that reads from a file) to be run with elevated privileges.

Something like

echo 'xxx' | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

or

cat AddTo_hosts.txt | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

You can stick a

> /dev/null

on the end if you don't want the text that you're piping around to also be displayed on your terminal.

[raleigh3]

Thanks CatKiller.