1PASTE(P) POSIX Programmer's Manual PASTE(P)
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6 paste - merge corresponding or subsequent lines of files
7
9 paste [-s][-d list] file...
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12 The paste utility shall concatenate the corresponding lines of the
13 given input files, and write the resulting lines to standard output.
14 The default operation of paste shall concatenate the corresponding
16 lines of the input files. The <newline> of every line except the line
17 from the last input file shall be replaced with a <tab>.
18 If an end-of-file condition is detected on one or more input files, but
20 not all input files, paste shall behave as though empty lines were read
21 from the files on which end-of-file was detected, unless the -s option
22 is specified.
23
25 The paste utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
26 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.
27 The following options shall be supported:
29 -d list
31 Unless a backslash character appears in list, each character in
32 list is an element specifying a delimiter character. If a back‐
33 slash character appears in list, the backslash character and one
34 or more characters following it are an element specifying a
35 delimiter character as described below. These elements specify
36 one or more delimiters to use, instead of the default <tab>, to
37 replace the <newline> of the input lines. The elements in list
38 shall be used circularly; that is, when the list is exhausted
39 the first element from the list is reused. When the -s option is
40 specified:
41 * The last <newline> in a file shall not be modified.
43 * The delimiter shall be reset to the first element of list
45 after each file operand is processed.
46 When the -s option is not specified:
48 * The <newline>s in the file specified by the last file operand
50 shall not be modified.
51 * The delimiter shall be reset to the first element of list
53 each time a line is processed from each file.
54 If a backslash character appears in list, it and the character follow‐
56 ing it shall be used to represent the following delimiter characters:
57 \n
59 <newline>.
60 \t
62 <tab>.
63 \\
65 Backslash character.
66 \0
68 Empty string (not a null character). If '\0' is immediately fol‐
69 lowed by the character 'x' , the character 'X' , or any charac‐
70 ter defined by the LC_CTYPE digit keyword (see the Base Defini‐
71 tions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Chapter 7, Locale), the
72 results are unspecified.
73 If any other characters follow the backslash, the results are unspeci‐
76 fied.
77 -s Concatenate all of the lines of each separate input file in com‐
79 mand line order. The <newline> of every line except the last
80 line in each input file shall be replaced with the <tab>, unless
81 otherwise specified by the -d option.
82
85 The following operand shall be supported:
86 file A pathname of an input file. If '-' is specified for one or more
88 of the files, the standard input shall be used; the standard
89 input shall be read one line at a time, circularly, for each
90 instance of '-' . Implementations shall support pasting of at
91 least 12 file operands.
92
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 variables
107 that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions volume of
108 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 8.2, Internationalization Vari‐
109 ables for 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 all
113 the other internationalization variables.
114 LC_CTYPE
116 Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of
117 bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as
118 opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input 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 error.
123 NLSPATH
125 Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of
126 LC_MESSAGES .
127
130 Default.
131
133 Concatenated lines of input files shall be separated by the <tab> (or
134 other characters under the control of the -d option) and terminated by
135 a <newline>.
136
138 The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
139
141 None.
142
144 None.
145
147 The following exit values shall be returned:
148 0 Successful completion.
150 >0 An error occurred.
152
155 If one or more input files cannot be opened when the -s option is not
156 specified, a diagnostic message shall be written to standard error, but
157 no output is written to standard output. If the -s option is specified,
158 the paste utility shall provide the default behavior described in Util‐
159 ity Description Defaults .
160 The following sections are informative.
162
164 When the escape sequences of the list option-argument are used in a
165 shell script, they must be quoted; otherwise, the shell treats the '\'
166 as a special character.
167 Conforming applications should only use the specific backslash escaped
169 delimiters presented in this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001. Historical
170 implementations treat '\x' , where 'x' is not in this list, as 'x' ,
171 but future implementations are free to expand this list to recognize
172 other common escapes similar to those accepted by printf and other
173 standard utilities.
174 Most of the standard utilities work on text files. The cut utility can
176 be used to turn files with arbitrary line lengths into a set of text
177 files containing the same data. The paste utility can be used to create
178 (or recreate) files with arbitrary line lengths. For example, if file
179 contains long lines:
180 cut -b 1-500 -n file > file1
183 cut -b 501- -n file > file2
184 creates file1 (a text file) with lines no longer than 500 bytes (plus
186 the <newline>) and file2 that contains the remainder of the data from
187 file. Note that file2 is not a text file if there are lines in file
188 that are longer than 500 + {LINE_MAX} bytes. The original file can be
189 recreated from file1 and file2 using the command:
190 paste -d "\0" file1 file2 > file
193 The commands:
195 paste -d "\0" ...
198 paste -d "" ...
199 are not necessarily equivalent; the latter is not specified by this
201 volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 and may result in an error. The con‐
202 struct '\0' is used to mean "no separator" because historical versions
203 of paste did not follow the syntax guidelines, and the command:
204 paste -d"" ...
207 could not be handled properly by getopt().
209
211 1. Write out a directory in four columns:
212 ls | paste - - - -
215 2. Combine pairs of lines from a file into single lines:
217 paste -s -d "\t\n" file
220
222 None.
223
225 None.
226
228 Utility Description Defaults , cut , grep , pr
229
231 Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
232 from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
233 -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
234 Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of
235 Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the
236 event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
237 The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
238 is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online
239 at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
240IEEE/The Open Group 2003 PASTE(P)