PASTE(1) (Directory and File Management Utilities) PASTE(1)
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). If you will, it
is the counterpart of cat(1) 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. 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.
The meanings of the 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
allows replacing the tab character by 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
Page 1 May 1989
PASTE(1) (Directory and File Management Utilities) PASTE(1)
null character). Quoting may be necessary, if
characters 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. Use tab for concatenation, unless a list is
specified with -d option. Regardless of the list, the
very last character of the file is forced to be a new-
line.
- May be used in place of any file name, 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 -s option, no more than 12 input
files may be specified.
Page 2 May 1989