The default separator for linux join is whitespace, when I try to use “t” to instead of whitespace with the command “join file1 file2 -t “t”", following error occurred:
join: multi-character tab `\t
Here is the resolved method is found by Google, just use the following command:
join file1 file12 -t $’t’
This is learned from stackoverflow and I just make it here as a note: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1722353/unix-join-separator-char
Man Join
Name
join – join lines of two files on a common field
Synopsis
join [OPTION]… FILE1 FILE2
Description
For each pair of input lines with identical join fields, write a line to standard output. The default join field is the first, delimited by whitespace. When FILE1 or FILE2 (not both) is -, read standard input.
-a FILENUM
print unpairable lines coming from file FILENUM, where FILENUM is 1 or 2, corresponding to FILE1 or FILE2
-e EMPTY
replace missing input fields with EMPTY
-i, –ignore-case ignore differences in case when comparing fields
-j FIELD
equivalent to ‘-1 FIELD -2 FIELD’
-o FORMAT
obey FORMAT while constructing output line
-t CHAR
use CHAR as input and output field separator
-v FILENUM
like -a FILENUM, but suppress joined output lines
-1 FIELD
join on this FIELD of file 1
-2 FIELD
join on this FIELD of file 2
–help
display this help and exit
–version
output version information and exit
Unless -t CHAR is given, leading blanks separate fields and are ignored, else fields are separated by CHAR. Any FIELD is a field number counted from 1. FORMAT is one or more comma or blank separated specifications, each being ‘FILENUM.FIELD’ or ’0′. Default FORMAT outputs the join field, the remaining fields from FILE1, the remaining fields from FILE2, all separated by CHAR.
Important: FILE1 and FILE2 must be sorted on the join fields.
Author
Written by Mike Haertel.
Reporting Bugs
Report bugs to
Copyright
Copyright � 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software. You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
See Also
The full documentation for join is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and join programs are properly installed at your site, the command
info join
should give you access to the complete manual.
Referenced By
combine(1)


