1PASTE(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual PASTE(1P)
2
6 This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux
7 implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding
8 Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may
9 not be implemented on Linux.
10
13 paste — merge corresponding or subsequent lines of files
14
16 paste [−s] [−d list] file...
17
19 The paste utility shall concatenate the corresponding lines of the
20 given input files, and write the resulting lines to standard output.
21 The default operation of paste shall concatenate the corresponding
23 lines of the input files. The <newline> of every line except the line
24 from the last input file shall be replaced with a <tab>.
25 If an end-of-file condition is detected on one or more input files, but
27 not all input files, paste shall behave as though empty lines were read
28 from the files on which end-of-file was detected, unless the −s option
29 is specified.
30
32 The paste utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
33 POSIX.1‐2008, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.
34 The following options shall be supported:
36 −d list Unless a <backslash> character appears in list, each charac‐
38 ter in list is an element specifying a delimiter character.
39 If a <backslash> character appears in list, the <backslash>
40 character and one or more characters following it are an ele‐
41 ment specifying a delimiter character as described below.
42 These elements specify one or more delimiters to use, instead
43 of the default <tab>, to replace the <newline> of the input
44 lines. The elements in list shall be used circularly; that
45 is, when the list is exhausted the first element from the
46 list is reused. When the −s option is specified:
47 * The last <newline> in a file shall not be modified.
49 * The delimiter shall be reset to the first element of list
51 after each file operand is processed.
52 When the −s option is not specified:
54 * The <newline> characters in the file specified by the
56 last file operand shall not be modified.
57 * The delimiter shall be reset to the first element of list
59 each time a line is processed from each file.
60 If a <backslash> character appears in list, it and the char‐
62 acter following it shall be used to represent the following
63 delimiter characters:
64 \n <newline>.
66 \t <tab>.
68 \\ <backslash> character.
70 \0 Empty string (not a null character). If '\0' is immedi‐
72 ately followed by the character 'x', the character 'X',
73 or any character defined by the LC_CTYPE digit keyword
74 (see the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chap‐
75 ter 7, Locale), the results are unspecified.
76 If any other characters follow the <backslash>, the results
78 are unspecified.
79 −s Concatenate all of the lines of each separate input file in
81 command line order. The <newline> of every line except the
82 last line in each input file shall be replaced with the
83 <tab>, unless otherwise specified by the −d option.
84
86 The following operand shall be supported:
87 file A pathname of an input file. If '−' is specified for one or
89 more of the files, the standard input shall be used; the
90 standard input shall be read one line at a time, circularly,
91 for each instance of '−'. Implementations shall support
92 pasting of at least 12 file operands.
93
95 The standard input shall be used only if one or more file operands is
96 '−'. See the INPUT FILES section.
97
99 The input files shall be text files, except that line lengths shall be
100 unlimited.
101
103 The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
104 paste:
105 LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization vari‐
107 ables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions vol‐
108 ume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 8.2, Internationalization Vari‐
109 ables the precedence of internationalization variables used
110 to determine the values of locale categories.)
111 LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of
113 all the other internationalization variables.
114 LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of
116 bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as
117 opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input
118 files).
119 LC_MESSAGES
121 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format
122 and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard
123 error.
124 NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing
126 of LC_MESSAGES.
127
129 Default.
130
132 Concatenated lines of input files shall be separated by the <tab> (or
133 other characters under the control of the −d option) and terminated by
134 a <newline>.
135
137 The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
138
140 None.
141
143 None.
144
146 The following exit values shall be returned:
147 0 Successful completion.
149 >0 An error occurred.
151
153 If one or more input files cannot be opened when the −s option is not
154 specified, a diagnostic message shall be written to standard error, but
155 no output is written to standard output. If the −s option is specified,
156 the paste utility shall provide the default behavior described in Sec‐
157 tion 1.4, Utility Description Defaults.
158 The following sections are informative.
160
162 When the escape sequences of the list option-argument are used in a
163 shell script, they must be quoted; otherwise, the shell treats the
164 <backslash> as a special character.
165 Conforming applications should only use the specific <back‐
167 slash>-escaped delimiters presented in this volume of POSIX.1‐2008.
168 Historical implementations treat '\x', where 'x' is not in this list,
169 as 'x', but future implementations are free to expand this list to rec‐
170 ognize other common escapes similar to those accepted by printf and
171 other standard utilities.
172 Most of the standard utilities work on text files. The cut utility can
174 be used to turn files with arbitrary line lengths into a set of text
175 files containing the same data. The paste utility can be used to create
176 (or recreate) files with arbitrary line lengths. For example, if file
177 contains long lines:
178 cut −b 1−500 −n file > file1
180 cut −b 501− −n file > file2
181 creates file1 (a text file) with lines no longer than 500 bytes (plus
183 the <newline>) and file2 that contains the remainder of the data from
184 file. Note that file2 is not a text file if there are lines in file
185 that are longer than 500 + {LINE_MAX} bytes. The original file can be
186 recreated from file1 and file2 using the command:
187 paste −d "\0" file1 file2 > file
189 The commands:
191 paste −d "\0" ...
193 paste −d "" ...
194 are not necessarily equivalent; the latter is not specified by this
196 volume of POSIX.1‐2008 and may result in an error. The construct '\0'
197 is used to mean ``no separator'' because historical versions of paste
198 did not follow the syntax guidelines, and the command:
199 paste −d"" ...
201 could not be handled properly by getopt().
203
205 1. Write out a directory in four columns:
206 ls | paste − − − −
208 2. Combine pairs of lines from a file into single lines:
210 paste −s −d "\t\n" file
212
214 None.
215
217 None.
218
220 Section 1.4, Utility Description Defaults, cut, grep, pr
221 The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 7, Locale, Chapter
223 8, Environment Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines
224
226 Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
227 from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
228 -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
229 Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of Electri‐
230 cal and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. (This is
231 POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the
232 event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
233 The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
234 is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online
235 at http://www.unix.org/online.html .
236 Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are
238 most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source
239 files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.ker‐
240 nel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
241IEEE/The Open Group 2013 PASTE(1P)