paste(1)




NAME

     paste - merge corresponding or subsequent lines of files


SYNOPSIS

     paste [-s] [-d list] file...


DESCRIPTION

     The paste utility will concatenate the  corresponding  lines
     of  the  given input files, and write the resulting lines to
     standard output.

     The  default  operation  of  paste  will   concatenate   the
     corresponding  lines of the input files. The NEWLINE charac-
     ter of every line except the line from the last  input  file
     will be replaced with a TAB character.

     If an EOF (end-of-file) condition is detected on one or more
     input  files,  but not all input files, paste will behave as
     though empty lines were read from the files on which EOF was
     detected, unless the -s option is specified.


OPTIONS

     The following options are supported:

     -d list
           Unless a backslash character (\) appears in list, each
           character in list is an element specifying a delimiter
           character. If a backslash character appears  in  list,
           the  backslash  character  and  one or more characters
           following it are an  element  specifying  a  delimiter
           character  as described below.  These elements specify
           one or more delimiters to use, instead of the  default
           TAB character, to replace the NEWLINE character of the
           input lines. The elements in list are used circularly.
           That is, when the list is exhausted, the first element
           from the list is reused.

           When the -s option is specified:

              o  The last newline character in a file will not be
                 modified.

              o  The delimiter will be reset to the first element
                 of list after each file operand is processed.
     When the option is not specified:

              o  The NEWLINE characters in the file specified  by
                 the last file will not be modified.

              o  The delimiter will be reset to the first element
                 of  list each time a line is processed from each
                 file.
     If a backslash character appears in list, it and the charac-
     ter  following  it  will  be used to represent the following
     delimiter characters:

           \n    Newline character.

           \t    Tab character.

           \\    Backslash character.

           \0    Empty string (not a null character).  If  \0  is
                 immediately  followed  by  the  character x, the
                 character X, or any  character  defined  by  the
                 LC_CTYPE digit keyword, the results are unspeci-
                 fied.

           If any other  characters  follow  the  backslash,  the
           results are unspecified.

     -s    Concatenate all of the lines of  each  separate  input
           file  in  command line order. The NEWLINE character of
           every line except the last line  in  each  input  file
           will be replaced with the TAB character, unless other-
           wise specified by the -d option.


OPERANDS

     The following operand is supported:

     file  A path name of an input file. If -  is  specified  for
           one  or  more of the files, the standard input will be
           used. The standard input will be read one  line  at  a
           time,  circularly, for each instance of -. Implementa-
           tions support pasting of at least 12 file operands.


USAGE

     See largefile(5) for the  description  of  the  behavior  of
     paste  when  encountering  files  greater than or equal to 2
     Gbyte ( 2**31 bytes).


EXAMPLES

     Example 1: Listing a directory in one column

     example% ls | paste -d" " -

     Example 2: Listing a directory in four columns

     example% ls | paste - - - -

     Example 3: Combining pairs of lines from a file into  single
     lines

     example% paste -s -d"\ t\ n" file


ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

     See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment
     variables  that affect the execution of paste: LANG, LC_ALL,
     LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.


EXIT STATUS

     The following exit values are returned:

     0     Successful completion.

     >0    An error occurred.


ATTRIBUTES

     See attributes(5) for descriptions of the  following  attri-
     butes:

     ____________________________________________________________
    |       ATTRIBUTE TYPE        |       ATTRIBUTE VALUE       |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|
    | Availability                | SUNWesu                     |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|
    | CSI                         | Enabled                     |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|
    | Interface Stability         | Standard                    |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|


SEE ALSO

     cut(1), grep(1), pr(1),  attributes(5),  environ(5),  large-
     file(5), standards(5)


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.

     "no delimiters"
           The -d option was specified with an empty list.

     "cannot open file"
           The specified file cannot be opened.


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