Hi, I need to combine 2 files. Requirement is - if the last line of file 1 starts with '99' replace that line with the data ( line 2 through end of the file) in file 2. File 1 looks like: 01asdlkjalskjasldfjalskjfd 02lkjdslkjlkajsljljas 03lkjdslkjljlsajdla . . . 99ljlsdjljasldjlsajd File 2 looks like: 01asdlkjalskjasldfjalskjfd 02lkjdslkjlkajsljljas 03lkjdslkjljlsajdla . . . 99ljlsdjljasldjlsajd The output should look like : 01asdlkjalskjasldfjalskjfd 02lkjdslkjlkajsljljas 03lkjdslkjljlsajdla 02lkjdslkjlkajsljljas 03lkjdslkjljlsajdla 99ljlsdjljasldjlsajd Which means, there should be only one '01' record and '99' record in the output file. Could someone helpme out with this? Thanks in advance. -Osho

This should work, results are stored in a file called combined. I used the file names tfile1 and tfile2 for your File 1 and File 2: #!/usr/bin/ksh nnol=$(tail -1 tfile1|grep ^99) if [[ $nnol != "" ]];then grep -v $nnol tfile1 > combined tail +2 tfile2 >> combined fi