1.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990 The Regents of the University of California. 2.\" All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by 5.\" Adam S. Moskowitz of Menlo Consulting. 6.\" 7.\" %sccs.include.redist.man% 8.\" 9.\" @(#)paste.1 5.2 (Berkeley) 06/11/90 10.\" 11.Dd 12.Dt PASTE 1 13.Os BSD 4.4 14.Sh NAME 15.Nm paste 16.Nd merge corresponding or subsequent lines of files 17.Sh SYNOPSIS 18.Nm paste 19.Op Fl s 20.Op Fl d Ar list 21.Ar file ... 22.Sh DESCRIPTION 23The 24.Nm paste 25utility concatenates the corresponding lines of the given input files, 26replacing all but the last file's newline characters with a single tab 27character, and writes the resulting lines to standard output. 28If end-of-file is reached on an input file while other input files 29still contain data, the file is treated as if it were an endless source 30of empty lines. 31.Pp 32The options are as follows: 33.Tw Fl 34.Tp Cx Fl d 35.Ar list 36.Cx 37Use one or more of the provided characters to replace the newline 38characters instead of the default tab. 39The characters in 40.Ar list 41are used circularly, i.e., when 42.Ar list 43is exhausted the first character from 44.Ar list 45is reused. 46This continues until a line from the last input file (in default operation) 47or the last line in each file (using the -s option) is displayed, at which 48time 49.Nm paste 50begins selecting characters from the beginning of 51.Ar list 52again. 53.Pp 54The following special characters can also be used in list: 55.Tw Ds 56.Tp Li \en 57newline character 58.br 59.Tp Li \et 60tab character 61.br 62.Tp Li \e\e 63backslash character 64.br 65.Tp Li \e0 66Empty string (not a null character). 67.Pp 68Any other character preceded by a backslash is equivalent to the 69character itself. 70.Tp 71.Tp Fl s 72Concatenate all of the lines of each separate input file in command line 73order. 74The newline character of every line except the last line in each input 75file is replaced with the tab character, unless otherwise specified by 76the -d option. 77.Tp 78.Pp 79If ``-'' is specified for one or more of the input files, the standard 80input is used; standard input is read one line at a time, circularly, 81for each instance of ``-''. 82.Pp 83The 84.Nm paste 85utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. 86.Sh SEE ALSO 87.Xr cut 1 88.Sh STANDARDS 89The 90.Nm paste 91function is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compatible. 92