Combine the contents of multiple folders into one: How?

[outsider787]

Is there any linux tools out there that allow me to do the following:

I would like to amalgamate/merge the directory contents of several folders into one.
Example: When I look in /mnt/merged/ I would like to see the contents of /mnt/nfs-share1, /home/user and /mnt/data

And I'm not talking about setting 3 symbolic links in /mnt/merged, either. I mean to actually see the contents of all 3 folders when I do a ls -al /mnt/merged

If nothing exists, then any thoughts how I could achieve that?

[bigtomrodney]

You could either physically move the files, which I suspect is not what you are looking at or you could write a script that would create symbolic links for every file in each directory. Unfortunately mounting is not an option because then you are in a situation where you can't write back (three locations).

Unless I suppose you were using some kind of overlay file system, possibly through fuse. That is how several live cds work.

[i92guboj]

You might find this interesting:

UnionFS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia