Join multiple files by their first columns

join_rec.sh

# usage: join_rec file1.tsv file2.tsv file3.tsv file*.tsv
# do not try to join 23k files...
function join_rec {
  f1=$1; f2=$2; 
  shift 2; 
  if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then 
    join -a1 -a2 -e 0 -o auto -t$'\t' "$f1" "$f2" | join_rec - "$@" ; 
  else 
    join -a1 -a2 -e 0 -o auto -t$'\t' "$f1" "$f2" ; 
  fi
}