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PASTE(1)                                 BSD General Commands 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 empty 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 characters in list are used circularly, i.e., when list is exhausted 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 displayed, 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 new-line newline
                 line character of every line except 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 input is used; standard input is
     read one line at a time, circularly, for each instance of `-'.

EXIT STATUS
     The paste utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

EXAMPLES
     List the files in the current directory in three columns:

           ls | paste - - -Combine -Combine

     Combine pairs of lines from a file into single lines:

           paste -s -d '\t\n' myfile

     Number the lines in a file, similar to nl(1):

           sed = myfile | paste -s -d '\t\n' - -Create -Create

     Create a colon-separated list of directories named bin, suitable for use in the PATH environment vari-able: variable:
     able:

           find / -name bin -type d | paste -s -d : -SEE :SEE

SEE ALSO
     cut(1), lam(1)

STANDARDS
     The paste utility is expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') compatible.

HISTORY
     A paste command appeared in Version 32V AT&T UNIX.

BSD                                             June 25, 2004                                            BSD