PASTE(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual PASTE(1P)
PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the correspond-
ing Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
NAME
paste - merge corresponding or subsequent lines of files
SYNOPSIS
paste [-s][-d list] file...
DESCRIPTION
The paste utility shall concatenate the corresponding lines of the given input files, and write the resulting lines to standard output.
The default operation of paste shall concatenate the corresponding lines of the input files. The <newline> of every line except the line
from the last input file shall be replaced with a <tab>.
If an end-of-file condition is detected on one or more input files, but not all input files, paste shall behave as though empty lines were
read from the files on which end-of-file was detected, unless the -s option is specified.
OPTIONS
The paste utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.
The following options shall be 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>, to replace the
<newline> of the input lines. The elements in list shall be used circularly; that is, when the list is exhausted the first element
from the list is reused. When the -s option is specified:
* The last <newline> in a file shall not be modified.
* The delimiter shall be reset to the first element of list after each file operand is processed.
When the -s option is not specified:
* The <newline>s in the file specified by the last file operand shall not be modified.
* The delimiter shall 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 character following it shall be used to represent the following delimiter characters:
<newline>.
<tab>.
\
Backslash character.
Empty string (not a null character). If '