paste(1)
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paste Command
merge lines
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SYNTAX
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(1), which concatenates vertically, i.e., one file after the
other. In its last form, 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. Output is to the standard output, so
it can be used as the start of a pipe, or as a filter, if - is
used in place of a file name.
Options are:
-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 lets you replace
the tab character with one or more alternate characters (see
below).
list One or more characters immediately following -d replace the
default tab as the line concatenation character. 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. The list may contain the special escape
sequences: \n (new-line), \t (tab), \\ (backslash), and \0
(empty string, not a null character). You may need to
enquote characters if they have special meaning to the shell
(e.g., to get one backslash, use -d"\\\\" ).
-s Merge subsequent lines rather than one from each input file.
The last character of the file is forced to be a new-line.
Use tab for concatenation, unless a list is specified with
-d option.
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paste(1)
- May be used in place of any filename, to read a line from
the standard input (there is no prompting).
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 the -s option, no more than 12 input
files may be specified.
DG/UX 4.00 Page 2
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