PASTE(C)                             UNIX System V



     Name
          paste - merges lines of files


     Syntax
          paste file1 file2 ...

          paste -dle1 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(C) which concatenates  vertically,  i.e.,
          one  file  after  the  other.  In the last form above, paste
          subsumes 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 filename.

          The meanings of the options are:

          -d   Without this option, the newline 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  newline  character, not from the list.  The list may
               contain the special escape sequences:  \n (newline), \t
               (tab), \\ (backslash), and \0 (empty string, not a null
               character).  Quoting may be  necessary,  if  characters
               have  special  meaning  to  the  shell (e.g. to get one
               backslash, use -d"\\\\" ).

          -s   Merges 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
               newline.

          -    May be used in place of any filename  to  read  a  line
               from the standard input.  (There is no prompting.)


     Examples
          ls | paste -d" " -
                         Lists directory in one column

          ls | paste - - - -
                         Lists directory in four columns

          paste -s -d"\t\n" file
                         Combines pairs of lines into lines


     See Also
          cut(C), grep(C), pr(C)


     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.


     Standards Conformance
          paste is conformant with:
          AT&T SVID Issue 2, Select Code 307-127;
          and The X/Open Portability Guide II of January 1987.


     (printed 2/15/90)                                   PASTE(C)