paste a block of text horizontally

i was torn between adding this in "Software" or "Programming", but i thought it might be a question geared more towards you programmers.

anyway, i need a way to copy multiple lines of text (a rather large block of plain text), add a [space][-][space] then paste the lines again somehow.

example:

Code:

this is the first line of text
this is the second line of text
this is the third line of text
this is the fourth line of text

would become

Code:

this is the first line of text - this is the first line of text
this is the second line of text - this is the second line of text
this is the third line of text - this is the third line of text
this is the fourth line of text - this is the fourth line of text

maybe someone knows of a trick or a script to do this?
i've looked at a couple pieces of software (bkreplacem, text magician, and have been trying to figure this out for a long time, but i can't wrap my head around the subject.

 

Well if your a programmer, pretty simple to do

Here is some java that does exactly that, you could use a writer to write it back out to a text file, write now I just send it to standard output

Code:

import java.io.*;


public class copyTxt{


	public static void main(String[] args)
	{
		try{
			FileReader text = new FileReader("test.txt");
			BufferedReader bRead = new BufferedReader(text);
			boolean eof = false;

			while(!eof)
			{
				String tmpString = bRead.readLine();
				if(tmpString == null)
					eof=true;
				else
					System.out.println(tmpString + " - " + tmpString);
			}//end while
			bRead.close();
		
		
		}//end try
		catch(IOException e)
		{
			System.out.println(e.toString());	
		}
		
	}//end main

}//end copyTxt

Example output

Code:

this is the first line of text - this is the first line of text
this is the second line of text - this is the second line of text
this is the third line of text - this is the third line of text
this is the fourth line of text - this is the fourth line of text

 

Heres an entire command line program to do it

Code:

import java.io.*;


public class copyTxt{


	public static void main(String[] args)
	{
		if (args.length == 2)
		{
			try{
				FileReader text = new FileReader(args[0]);
				FileWriter out = new FileWriter(args[1]);
				BufferedWriter bWrite = new BufferedWriter(out);
				BufferedReader bRead = new BufferedReader(text);
				boolean eof = false;

				while(!eof)
				{
					String tmpString = bRead.readLine();
					if(tmpString == null)
					{	eof=true;	}
					else
					{
						System.out.println(tmpString + " - " + tmpString);
						bWrite.write(tmpString + " - " + tmpString + "\n");
					}
				}//end while
				bRead.close();
				bWrite.close();
		
		
			}//end try
			catch(IOException e)
			{
				System.out.println(e.toString());	
			}
			}//end if
			else
			{ System.out.println("Usage: java copytext inputtextfile outputtextfile"); }
	}//end main

}//end copyTxt

Install the java JDK, run javac copyTxt.java to compile and then run it from command line like so

java copyTxt test.txt testout.txt

test.txt being input and testout.txt being output, or just message me and I can send you the compiled file if you trust me.

 

Brilliant! works beautifully. thanks a ton Wookie, i'm in debt to ya :major