Ahh yeah...can't believe I didn't think of that. BTW, for pdftk, "cat"
is a command line option, not referring to the cat we know and love.
I think the final ver of the command would be:
cat I-A-files.txt |xargs -i pdftk "{}" cat output I-A.pdf verbose
Okay...my head hurts now :)
-Charles
Erich Newell wrote:
> xargs has additional flexibility...try using the "replace string"
> parameter
>
> So do:
>
> cat list.txt | xargs -i cat "{}" | pdftk output -
>
> The curly braces indicate where the input goes...in this case, between
> the quotes. Should handle those pesky spaces for you.
>
> Looks like this will dump a ton of pdf content to stdout....is that
> what you really want?
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 7:22 PM, Craig White <craigwhite@azapple.com
> <mailto:craigwhite@azapple.com>> wrote:
>
> Again, that works but it fails because the PDF includes on the
> last file. As I said, I don't think an xargs thing is going to
> work at all because as the man page states...the '-' option is to
> pass only a single file via stdin.
>
> Craig
>
> On Tue, 2008-03-04 at 19:10 -0700, Charles Jones wrote:
> > Ah those darn spaces sure cause problems :) Give this a try:
> >
> > $ cat I-A-files.txt | sed 's/ /\\ /g' | xargs cat | pdftk - output
> > I-a.pdf verbose
> >
> > It works for my test case:
> > $ cat file.txt
> > file with spaces
> > some other file
> >
> > $ cat "file with spaces"
> > This is the contents of a file with spaces
> > $ cat some\ other\ file
> > This is some other file
> >
> > $ cat file.txt | sed 's/ /\\ /g' |xargs cat
> > This is the contents of a file with spaces
> > This is some other file
> >
> > Probably a more elegant way to do it, but I'm late for dinner :-)
> >
> > -Charles
> >
> >
> > Craig White wrote:
> > > That doesn't seem to work. I quoted the part of the man page
> that the
> > > '-' is used to pass only a single PDF into pdftk via stdin and
> thus the
> > > xargs thing seems not to fly.
> > >
> > > $ cat I-A-files.txt | xargs -0 pdftk cat output I-A.pdf verbose
> > > Error: No input files. Exiting.
> > > Errors encountered. No output created.
> > > Done. Input errors, so no output created.
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > >
> > > Craig
> > >
> > > On Tue, 2008-03-04 at 17:24 -0700, Charles Jones wrote:
> > >
> > >> Give this a try:
> > >>
> > >> cat /path/to/filenames_file.xt |xargs pdftk
> > >>
> > >> -Charles
> > >>
> > >> Craig White wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> I have an awkward situation with pdftk
> > >>>
> > >>> I have a file with filenames that I want to pass to pdftk as
> input
> > >>> files.
> > >>>
> > >>> according to the man page...
> > >>> <input PDF files | - | PROMPT>
> > >>> A list of the input PDF files. If you plan to combine
> these PDFs
> > >>> (without using handles) then list files in the order you
> want
> > >>> them combined. Use - to pass a single PDF into pdftk via
> stdin.
> > >>>
> > >>> and thus, this doesn't work...
> > >>>
> > >>> pdftk `cat "/mypath/to/I-A-files.txt"` cat output I-A.pdf
> verbose
> > >>>
> > >>> fails on spaces within the paths/filenames in that file.
> > >>>
> > >>> I have tried both escaping the spaces with \ and enclosing
> each path
> > >>> within a double quote but neither works.
> > >>>
> > >>> I have also tried (which fails)...
> > >>>
> > >>> $ cat "/mypath/to/I-A-files.txt" | pdftk - cat output
> I-A.pdf verbose
> > >>> Error: Failed to open PDF file:
> > >>> -
> > >>> Errors encountered. No output created.
> > >>> Done. Input errors, so no output created.
> > >>> sh-3.2$ ls -l
> > >>> total 4440
> > >>> -rw-r--r-- 1 craig administrative 10 2008-03-04 15:15
> doc_toc.html
> > >>> -rw-r--r-- 1 craig administrative 1898 2008-03-04 15:30
> I-A-files.txt
> > >>>
> > >>> Any suggestions on this?
> > >>>
> > >>> T
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