HP-UX Reference (11i v2 04/09) - 1 User Commands N-Z (vol 2)

p
paste(1) paste(1)
NAME
paste - merge same lines of several files or subsequent lines of one file
SYNOPSIS
paste file1 file2 ...
paste -d list file1 file2 ...
paste -s [-d list ] file1 file2 ...
DESCRIPTION
In the first two forms,
paste concatenates corresponding lines of the given input files file1, file2, etc. It
treats each file as a column or columns in a table and pastes them together horizontally (parallel merg-
ing). In other words, it is the horizontal counterpart of cat(1) which concatenates vertically; i.e., one file
after the other. In the
-s option form above,
paste replaces the function of an older command with
the same name by combining subsequent lines of the input file (serial merging). In all cases, lines are
glued together with the tab character, or with characters from an optionally specified list. Output is to
standard output, so
paste can be used as the start of a pipe, or as a filter if
- is used instead of a file
name.
paste recognizes the following options and command-line arguments:
-d Without this option, the new-line characters of all but the last file (or last line in case of
the
-s option) are replaced by a tab character. This option allows replacing the tab
character by one or more alternate characters (see below).
list One or more characters immediately following
-d replace the default tab as the line con-
catenation character. The list is used circularly; i.e., when exhausted, it is reused. In
parallel merging (that is, no -s option), the lines from the last file are always ter-
minated with a new-line character, not from the list . The list can contain the special
escape sequences: \n (new-line), \t (tab), \\ (backslash), and \0 (empty string, not
a null character). Quoting may be necessary if characters have special meaning to the
shell. (For example, to get one backslash, use -d"\\\\").
-s Merge subsequent lines rather than one from each input file. Use tab for concatenation,
unless a list is specified with the -d option. Regardless of the list, the very last charac-
ter of the file is forced to be a new-line.
- Can be used in place of any file name to read a line from the standard input (there is no
prompting).
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
Environment Variables
LC_CTYPE determines the locale for the interpretation of text as single- and/or multi-byte characters.
LC_MESSAGES determines the language in which messages are displayed.
If
LC_CTYPE or LC_MESSAGES is not specified in the environment or is set to the empty string, the
value of LANG is used as a default for each unspecified or empty variable. If LANG is not specified or is
set to the empty string, a default of "C" (see lang(5)) is used instead of LANG.
If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting,
paste behaves as if all internationaliza-
tion variables are set to "C". See environ(5).
International Code Set Support
Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported.
RETURN VALUE
These commands return the following values upon completion:
0 Completed successfully.
>0 An error occurred.
EXAMPLES
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Section 1−−714 Hewlett-Packard Company − 1 − HP-UX 11i Version 2: September 2004