.\" SCCSID: @(#)paste.1 2.3 7/15/87 .TH paste 1 .SH Name paste \- merge file data .SH Syntax \fBpaste \fIfile1 file2...\fR .br \fBpaste \-d\fI\|list file1 file2...\fR .br \fBpaste \-s [\-d\fI\|list\|\fR] \fIfile1 file2...\fR .SH Description .NXR "paste command" .NXR "file" "merging horizontally" In the first two forms, .PN paste concatenates corresponding lines of the given input files .IR file1 , .IR file2 , etc. It treats each file as a column or columns of a table and pastes them together horizontally (parallel merging). .PP In the last form, the .PN paste command combines subsequent lines of the input file (serial merging). .PP In all cases, lines are glued together with the .I tab\^ character, or with characters from an optionally specified .IR list . Output is to the standard output, so it can be used as the start of a pipe, or as a filter, if \fB\-\fP is used in place of a file name. .PP .SH Options .NXR "paste command" "options list" .IP \fB\-\fR 8 Used in place of any file name, to read a line from the standard input. (There is no prompting). .IP \fB\-\|d\fIlist\fR Replaces characters of all but last file with nontabs characters (default tab). One or more characters immediately following .B \-d replace the default .I tab\^ as the line concatenation character. The list is used circularly, i. e. when exhausted, it is reused. In parallel merging (i. e. no .B \-s option), the lines from the last file are always terminated with a new-line character, not from the .IR list . The list may contain the special escape sequences: .B \en (new-line), .B \et (tab), .B \e\e (backslash), and .B \e0 (empty string, not a null character). Quoting may be necessary, if characters have special meaning to the shell (for example, to get one backslash, use .I \-d\|"\e\e\e\e\^" ). .br Without this option, the new-line characters of each but the last file (or last line in case of the .B \-s option) are replaced by a .I tab\^ character. This option allows replacing the .I tab\^ character by one or more alternate characters (see below). .IP \fB\-s\fR Merges subsequent lines rather than one from each input file. Use .I tab\^ for concatenation, unless a .I list\^ is specified with .B \-d option. Regardless of the .IR list , the very last character of the file is forced to be a new-line. .SH Examples .NXR "paste command" "examples" .EX ls \|\(bv\| paste \|\-d" " \|\- .EE list directory in one column .EX ls \|\(bv\| paste \|\- \|\- \|\- \|\- .EE list directory in four columns .EX paste \|\-s \|\-d"\e\|t\e\|n" \|file .EE combine pairs of lines into lines .SH Diagnostics .NXR "paste command" "diagnostics" .TP 10m .I "line too long\^" Output lines are restricted to 511 characters. .TP .I "too many files\^" Except for .B \-s option, no more than 12 input files may be specified. .SH See Also cut(1), grep(1), pr(1)
