4.3BSD-UWisc/man/man1/paste.1

.TH PASTE 1
.SH NAME
paste \- merge same lines of several files or subsequent lines of one file
.SH SYNOPSIS
\f3paste \fPfile1 file2 .\|.\|.
.br
\f3paste \-d\fP\|list file1 file2 .\|.\|.
.br
\f3paste \-s [\-d\fP\|list\|\f3] \fPfile1 file2 .\|.\|.
.SH DESCRIPTION
In the first two forms,
.I 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).
If you will, it is
the counterpart of
.IR cat (1)
which concatenates vertically, i.e.,
one file after the other.
In the last form above,
.I 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
.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 \f3\-\fP is used in place of a file name.
.PP
The meanings of the options are:
.TP
.B "\-d"
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).
.TP
.I "list\^"
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
(e.g. to get one backslash, use
.I \-d\|"\e\e\e\e\^"
).
.TP
.B "\-s"
Merge 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.
.TP
.B "\-"
May be used in place of any file name,
to read a line from the standard input.
(There is no prompting).
.SH EXAMPLES
.TP 15m
ls \|\(bv\| paste \|\-d" " \|\-
list directory in one column
.TP
ls \|\(bv\| paste \|\- \|\- \|\- \|\-
list directory in four columns
.TP
paste \|\-s \|\-d"\e\|t\e\|n" \|file
combine pairs of lines into lines
.SH "SEE ALSO"
grep(1), cut(1),
.br
pr(1):
.BR "pr \-t \-m" .\|.\|.
works similarly, but creates extra blanks, tabs and new-lines for a nice page layout.
.SH 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.
.\"	@(#)paste.1	5.2 of 5/18/82