UNIX Shells by Example (4th Edition)

paste ”merges same lines of several files or subsequent lines of one file

paste filename1 filename2... paste d list filename1 filename2... paste s [ d list ] filename1 filename2...

paste concatenates corresponding lines of the given input files filename1 , filename2 , and so on. It treats each file as a column or columns of a table and pastes them together horizontally (see cut ).

Example A.40.

1 ls paste - - - 2 paste -s -d"\t\n" testfile1 testfile2 3 paste file1 file2

EXPLANATION

1. Files are listed in three columns and glued together with a tab.

2. Combines a pair of lines into a single line using a tab and newline as the delimiter (i.e., the first pair of lines are glued with a tab; the next pair are glued by a newline, the next pair by a tab, etc.). The “s switch causes subsequent lines from testfile1 to be pasted first and then subsequent lines from testfile2 .

3. A line from file1 is pasted to a line from file2, glued together by a tab so that the file lines appear as two columns.