paste.1 (3214B)
1 .TH PASTE 1 paste-VERSION "Apr 2013" 2 .SH NAME 3 paste \- merge corresponding or subsequent lines of files 4 .SH "SYNOPSIS" 5 .PP 6 .B paste 7 [ 8 .B \-s 9 ] 10 [ 11 .B \-d 12 .I list 13 ] 14 .I file... 15 .SH DESCRIPTION 16 The 17 .B paste 18 utility concatenates the corresponding lines of the given input files, 19 and writes the resulting lines to standard output. The default operation 20 of 21 .B paste 22 concatenates the corresponding lines of the input files. 23 The newline of every line except the line from the last input file is 24 replaced with a tab. 25 If an end-of-file condition is detected on one or more input files, 26 but not all input files, 27 .B paste 28 behaves as though empty lines were read from the files on which 29 end-of-file was detected, unless the 30 .B \-s 31 option is specified. 32 .SH OPTIONS 33 .TP 34 .B \-d list 35 unless a backslash character appears in 36 .I list 37 each character is an element specifying a delimiter. 38 If a backslash character appears, that and one or more characters 39 following it are an element specifying a delimiter. 40 These elements specify one or more characters to use, 41 instead of the default tab, to replace the newline of the input 42 lines. The elements in 43 .I list 44 are used circularly; that is, when the 45 .I list 46 is exhausted the first element from the list is reused. 47 When the 48 .B \-s 49 option is specified, the last newline in a file is not be modified. 50 The delimiter is reset to the first element of list after each file 51 operand is processed. 52 If a backslash character appears in list, it and the character following 53 it represents the following delimiters: 54 .RS 55 .TP 56 .I \en 57 newline character 58 .TP 59 .I \et 60 tab character 61 .TP 62 .I \e\e 63 backslash character 64 .TP 65 .I \e0 66 empty string (not a null character) 67 .TP 68 If Any other characters follow the backslash, results are unspecified. 69 .RE 70 .TP 71 .B \-s 72 concatenate all of the lines of each separate input file in command line 73 order. The newline of every line except the last line in each input file 74 are replaced with the tab, unless otherwise specified by the 75 .B \-d 76 option. 77 .PP 78 If '\-' is specified for one or more input files, the standard input is 79 used; standard input is read one line at a time, circularly for each 80 instance of '\-'. 81 .SH EXIT VALUES 82 The 83 .B paste 84 utility exits 0 on successful completion, and >0 if an error 85 occurs. 86 .SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 87 The following environment variables affect the execution: 88 .TP 89 .B LANG 90 provide a default value for the internationalization variables 91 that are unset or null. 92 .TP 93 .B LC_ALL 94 if set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the 95 other internationalization variables. 96 .TP 97 .B LC_CTYPE 98 determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes 99 of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to 100 multi-byte characters in arguments and input files). 101 .TP 102 .B LC_MESSAGES 103 determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and 104 contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error. 105 .SH CONFORMING TO 106 The 107 .B paste 108 utility is IEEE Std 1003.2 (POSIX.2) compatible. 109 .SH EXAMPLES 110 .TP 111 .I "ls | paste - - - -" 112 .PP 113 Write out a directory in four columns. 114 .TP 115 .I "paste -s -d '\et\en' file" 116 .PP 117 Combine pairs of lines from a file into single lines. 118 .SH AUTHOR 119 Written by Lorenzo Cogotti. 120 .SH SEE ALSO 121 .BR cut(1) 122 .BR lam(1)