NAME

paste − merge same lines of several files or subsequent lines of one file

SYNOPSIS

paste file1 file2 ...
paste −dlist file1 file2 ...
paste −s [ −dlist ] file1 file2 ...

DESCRIPTION

In the first two forms, paste concatenates corresponding lines of the given input files file1, file2, etc. It treats each file as a column or columns of a table and pastes them together horizontally (parallel merging). It is the counterpart of cat which concatenates vertically, i.e., one file after the other.  In the last form above, paste replaces the function of an older command with the same name by combining subsequent lines of the input file (serial merging).  In all cases, lines are glued together with the tab character, or with characters from an optionally specified list. paste can be used as a filter, if − is used in place of a filename. 

OPTIONS

−d Without this option, the new-line characters of each but the last file (or last line in case of the −s option) are replaced by a tab character.  This option allows replacing the tab character by one or more alternate characters in list.  The list is used circularly, i.e., when exhausted, it is reused.  In parallel merging (i.e., no −s option), the lines from the last file are always terminated with a new-line character, not from the list. list may contain the special escape sequences: \n (new-line), \t (tab), \\ (backslash), and \0 (empty string, not a null character).  Quoting may be necessary, if characters have special meaning to the shell. 

−s Merge subsequent lines rather than one from each input file.  Use tab for concatenation, unless list is specified with −d.  Regardless of the list, the very last character of the file is forced to be a new-line.

EXAMPLES

ls │ paste −d" " − list directory in one column

ls │ paste − − − − list directory in four columns

paste −s −d"\t\n" file combine pairs of lines into lines

SEE ALSO

cut(1), grep(1), pr(1)

DIAGNOSTICS

line too long Output lines are restricted to 511 characters. 

too many files Except for −s option, no more than 12 input files may be specified. 

Sun Release 3.2  —  Last change: