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PASTE(1)		     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 new-
		 line 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 newline character of every line except
		 the last line in each input file is replaced with the tab char-
		 acter, 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 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 - -

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

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

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 first appeared in AT&T System III UNIX and has been avail-
     able since 4.3BSD-Reno.

AUTHORS
     The original Bell Labs version was written by Gottfried W. R.  Luderer  and
     the BSD version by Adam S. Moskowitz and Marciano Pitargue.

FreeBSD 15.1			November 6, 2022			PASTE(1)
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