PASTE(1)                   OpenBSD Reference Manual                   PASTE(1)

NAME
     paste - merge corresponding or subsequent lines of files



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

DESCRIPTION
     The paste utility concatenates the corresponding lines of the given input
     files, replacing all but the last file's newline characters with a single
     tab character, and writes the resulting lines to standard output.  If
     end-of-file is reached on an input file while other input files still
     contain data, the file is treated as if it were an endless source of emp-
     ty lines.

     The options are as follows:

     -d list     Use one or more of the provided characters to replace the
                 newline characters instead of the default tab.  The charac-
                 ters in list are used circularly, i.e., when list is exhaust-
                 ed the first character from list is reused.  This continues
                 until a line from the last input file (in default operation)
                 or the last line in each file (using the -s option) is dis-
                 played, at which time paste begins selecting characters from
                 the beginning of list again.

                 The following special characters can also be used in list:

                 \n    newline character
                 \t    tab character
                 \\    backslash character
                 \0    empty string (not a null character)

                 Any other character preceded by a backslash is equivalent to
                 the character itself.

     -s          Concatenate all of the lines of each separate input file in
                 command line order.  The newline character of every line ex-
                 cept the last line in each input file is replaced with the
                 tab character, unless otherwise specified by the -d option.

     If `-' is specified for one or more of the input files, the standard in-
     put is used; standard input is read one line at a time, circularly, for
     each instance of `-'.

     The paste utility exits 0 on success or >0 if an error occurred.

SEE ALSO
     cut(1)

STANDARDS
     The paste utility is expected to be IEEE Std1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') compati-
     ble.

OpenBSD 2.6                      July 27, 1991                               1