paste(1)						      General Commands Manual							  paste(1)

NAME

       paste - merge same lines of several files or subsequent lines of one file

SYNOPSIS

       file1 file2 ...

       list file1 file2 ...

       list] file1 file2 ...

DESCRIPTION

       In  the	first  two forms, concatenates corresponding lines of the given input files file1, file2, etc.	It treats each file as a column or
       columns in a table and pastes them together horizontally (parallel merging).  In other words, it is the horizontal  counterpart	of  cat(1)
       which  concatenates  vertically;  i.e., one file after the other.  In the option form above, replaces the function of an older command with
       the same name by combining subsequent lines of the input file (serial merging).	In all cases, lines are glued together with the tab  char-
       acter,  or with characters from an optionally specified list.  Output is to standard output, so can be used as the start of a pipe, or as a
       filter if is used instead of a file name.

   recognizes the following options and command-line arguments:
	      Without this option, the new-line characters
			of all but the last file (or last line in case of the option) are replaced by a tab character.	This option allows replac-
			ing the tab character by one or more alternate characters (see below).

	      list	One  or  more  characters  immediately following replace the default tab as the line concatenation character.  The list is
			used circularly; i.e., when exhausted, it is reused.  In parallel merging (that is, no option), the lines  from  the  last
			file  are  always  terminated  with  a	new-line  character,  not  from the list.  The list can contain the special escape
			sequences: (new-line), (tab), (backslash), and (empty string, not a null character).  Quoting may be necessary if  charac-
			ters have special meaning to the shell.  (For example, to get one backslash, use ).

	      Merge subsequent lines rather than one from each input file.
			Use tab for concatenation, unless a list is specified with the option.	Regardless of the list, the very last character of
			the file is forced to be a new-line.

	      Can be used in place of any file name
			to read a line from the standard input (there is no prompting).

EXTERNAL INFLUENCES

   Environment Variables
       determines the locale for the interpretation of text as single- and/or multi-byte characters.

       determines the language in which messages are displayed.

       If or is not specified in the environment or is set to the empty string, the value of is used as a default for each  unspecified  or  empty
       variable.  If is not specified or is set to the empty string, a default of "C" (see lang(5)) is used instead of

       If  any	internationalization  variable	contains an invalid setting, behaves as if all internationalization variables are set to "C".  See
       environ(5).

   International Code Set Support
       Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported.

RETURN VALUE

       These commands return the following values upon completion:

	      Completed successfully.

	      An error occurred.

EXAMPLES

       List directory in one column:

       List directory in four columns

       Combine pairs of lines into lines

   Notes
       works similarly, but creates extra blanks, tabs and new-lines for a nice page layout.

DIAGNOSTICS

       Except for the		option, no more than - 3 input files can be specified (see limits(5)).

AUTHOR

       was developed by OSF and HP.

SEE ALSO

       cut(1), grep(1), pr(1).

STANDARDS CONFORMANCE

																	  paste(1)