for i in a b c d
        do
                for j in 1 2 3 4
                        do
                                echo "$i $j"
                        done
        done

Don't use two loops.

Code:

n=1
for l in a b c d
do
   printf "%s %d\n" "$l" "$n"
   n=$(( $n + 1 ))
done

Quote:

Originally Posted by marcpascual Thanks, I need to re-qualify my question: what if its not a number and you can't do math on it? e.g. list1: mary eve delilah list2: joseph adam samson output: mary joseph adam eve samson delilah for i in `cat list1`; ... for j in `cat list2`; ... do ... print $i $j ... done any way around this?

set -f
IFS='
'
set -- $( cat list2 )
for i in `cat list1`
do
  printf "%s %s\n" "$i" "$1"
  shift
done

Quote:

Originally Posted by cfajohnson Code: set -f IFS=' ' set -- $( cat list2 ) for i in `cat list1` do printf "%s %s\n" "$i" "$1" shift done

paste -d ' ' list1 list2

Quote:

Originally Posted by danmero KISS principle states that design simplicity should be a key goal and unnecessary complexity avoided. Code: paste -d ' ' list1 list2

That works for that specific case, but doesn't address the general problem as originally posed.