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PASTE(1P)		   POSIX Programmer's Manual		     PASTE(1P)

PROLOG
       This  manual  page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux
       implementation of this interface may differ (consult the	 corresponding
       Linux  manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may
       not be implemented on Linux.

NAME
       paste — merge corresponding or subsequent lines of files

SYNOPSIS
       paste [−s] [−d list] file...

DESCRIPTION
       The paste utility shall concatenate  the	 corresponding	lines  of  the
       given input files, and write the resulting lines to standard output.

       The  default  operation	of  paste  shall concatenate the corresponding
       lines of the input files. The <newline> of every line except  the  line
       from the last input file shall be replaced with a <tab>.

       If an end-of-file condition is detected on one or more input files, but
       not all input files, paste shall behave as though empty lines were read
       from  the files on which end-of-file was detected, unless the −s option
       is specified.

OPTIONS
       The paste utility shall conform	to  the	 Base  Definitions  volume  of
       POSIX.1‐2008, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following options shall be supported:

       −d list	 Unless	 a <backslash> character appears in list, each charac‐
		 ter in list is an element specifying a	 delimiter  character.
		 If  a	<backslash> character appears in list, the <backslash>
		 character and one or more characters following it are an ele‐
		 ment  specifying  a  delimiter	 character as described below.
		 These elements specify one or more delimiters to use, instead
		 of  the  default <tab>, to replace the <newline> of the input
		 lines. The elements in list shall be  used  circularly;  that
		 is,  when  the	 list  is exhausted the first element from the
		 list is reused. When the −s option is specified:

		  *  The last <newline> in a file shall not be modified.

		  *  The delimiter shall be reset to the first element of list
		     after each file operand is processed.

		 When the −s option is not specified:

		  *  The  <newline>  characters	 in  the file specified by the
		     last file operand shall not be modified.

		  *  The delimiter shall be reset to the first element of list
		     each time a line is processed from each file.

		 If  a <backslash> character appears in list, it and the char‐
		 acter following it shall be used to represent	the  following
		 delimiter characters:

		 \n    <newline>.

		 \t    <tab>.

		 \\    <backslash> character.

		 \0    Empty string (not a null character). If '\0' is immedi‐
		       ately followed by the character 'x', the character 'X',
		       or  any character defined by the LC_CTYPE digit keyword
		       (see the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chap‐
		       ter 7, Locale), the results are unspecified.

		 If  any  other characters follow the <backslash>, the results
		 are unspecified.

       −s	 Concatenate all of the lines of each separate input  file  in
		 command  line	order.	The <newline> of every line except the
		 last line in each input  file	shall  be  replaced  with  the
		 <tab>, unless otherwise specified by the −d option.

OPERANDS
       The following operand shall be supported:

       file	 A  pathname  of an input file. If '−' is specified for one or
		 more of the files, the standard  input	 shall	be  used;  the
		 standard  input shall be read one line at a time, circularly,
		 for each instance  of	'−'.   Implementations	shall  support
		 pasting of at least 12 file operands.

STDIN
       The  standard  input shall be used only if one or more file operands is
       '−'.  See the INPUT FILES section.

INPUT FILES
       The input files shall be text files, except that line lengths shall  be
       unlimited.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       The  following  environment  variables  shall  affect  the execution of
       paste:

       LANG	 Provide a default value for  the  internationalization	 vari‐
		 ables	that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions vol‐
		 ume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 8.2, Internationalization	 Vari‐
		 ables	the  precedence of internationalization variables used
		 to determine the values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL	 If set to a non-empty string value, override  the  values  of
		 all the other internationalization variables.

       LC_CTYPE	 Determine  the	 locale for the interpretation of sequences of
		 bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as
		 opposed  to  multi-byte  characters  in  arguments  and input
		 files).

       LC_MESSAGES
		 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format
		 and  contents	of  diagnostic	messages  written  to standard
		 error.

       NLSPATH	 Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing
		 of LC_MESSAGES.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
       Default.

STDOUT
       Concatenated  lines  of input files shall be separated by the <tab> (or
       other characters under the control of the −d option) and terminated  by
       a <newline>.

STDERR
       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES
       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
       None.

EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values shall be returned:

	0    Successful completion.

       >0    An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
       If  one	or more input files cannot be opened when the −s option is not
       specified, a diagnostic message shall be written to standard error, but
       no output is written to standard output. If the −s option is specified,
       the paste utility shall provide the default behavior described in  Sec‐
       tion 1.4, Utility Description Defaults.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE
       When  the  escape  sequences  of the list option-argument are used in a
       shell script, they must be quoted;  otherwise,  the  shell  treats  the
       <backslash> as a special character.

       Conforming   applications   should   only   use	 the  specific	<back‐
       slash>-escaped delimiters presented in  this  volume  of	 POSIX.1‐2008.
       Historical  implementations  treat '\x', where 'x' is not in this list,
       as 'x', but future implementations are free to expand this list to rec‐
       ognize  other  common  escapes  similar to those accepted by printf and
       other standard utilities.

       Most of the standard utilities work on text files. The cut utility  can
       be  used	 to  turn files with arbitrary line lengths into a set of text
       files containing the same data. The paste utility can be used to create
       (or  recreate)  files with arbitrary line lengths. For example, if file
       contains long lines:

	   cut −b 1−500 −n file > file1
	   cut −b 501− −n file > file2

       creates file1 (a text file) with lines no longer than 500  bytes	 (plus
       the  <newline>)	and file2 that contains the remainder of the data from
       file.  Note that file2 is not a text file if there are  lines  in  file
       that  are  longer than 500 + {LINE_MAX} bytes. The original file can be
       recreated from file1 and file2 using the command:

	   paste −d "\0" file1 file2 > file

       The commands:

	   paste −d "\0" ...
	   paste −d "" ...

       are not necessarily equivalent; the latter is  not  specified  by  this
       volume  of  POSIX.1‐2008 and may result in an error. The construct '\0'
       is used to mean ``no separator'' because historical versions  of	 paste
       did not follow the syntax guidelines, and the command:

	   paste −d"" ...

       could not be handled properly by getopt().

EXAMPLES
	1. Write out a directory in four columns:

	       ls | paste − − − −

	2. Combine pairs of lines from a file into single lines:

	       paste −s −d "\t\n" file

RATIONALE
       None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
       None.

SEE ALSO
       Section 1.4, Utility Description Defaults, cut, grep, pr

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 7, Locale, Chapter
       8, Environment Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines

COPYRIGHT
       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in  electronic  form
       from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
       -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX),	The  Open  Group  Base
       Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of Electri‐
       cal and Electronics Engineers,  Inc  and	 The  Open  Group.   (This  is
       POSIX.1-2008  with  the	2013  Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the
       event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
       The  Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
       is the referee document. The original Standard can be  obtained	online
       at http://www.unix.org/online.html .

       Any  typographical  or  formatting  errors that appear in this page are
       most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source
       files  to  man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.ker‐
       nel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

IEEE/The Open Group		     2013			     PASTE(1P)
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