PASTE(1)            RISC/os Reference Manual             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 option-
     ally 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
          null character).  Quoting may be necessary, if charac-
          ters 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).



                        Printed 11/19/92                   Page 1

PASTE(1)            RISC/os Reference Manual             PASTE(1)



INTERNATIONAL FUNCTIONALITY
     paste can process characters from supplementary code sets as
     well as ASCII characters.

     With the -dlist option, characters from supplementary code
     sets can be specified for list.

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                 Printed 11/19/92