paste is a Unix command line utility which is used to join files horizontally (parallel merging) by outputting lines consisting of the sequentially corresponding lines of each file specified, separated by tabs, to the standard output. It is effectively the horizontal equivalent to the utility cat command which operates on the vertical plane of two or more files.
Example
To paste several columns of data together into the file www from files who, where, and when:
paste who where when > www
If the files contain:
| who | where | when |
|---|---|---|
|
Sam |
Detroit |
January 3 |
This creates the file named www containing:
Sam Detroit January 3 Dave Edgewood February 4 Sue Tampa March 19
See also
Unix command line programs and builtins (more) | |
|---|---|
| File and file system management | alias · cat · chattr · cd · chmod · chown · chgrp · cksum · cmp · cp · du · df · file · fsck · fuser · ln · ls · lsattr · lsof · mkdir · mount · mv · pwd · rm · rmdir · split · touch |
| Process management | at · chroot · crontab · exit · kill · killall · nice · pgrep · pidof · pkill · ps · pstree · sleep · time · top · wait · watch |
| User management/environment | env · finger · id · logname · mesg · passwd · su · sudo · uname · uptime · w · wall · who · whoami · write |
| Text processing | awk · comm · cut · ed · ex · fmt · head · iconv · join · less · more · paste · sed · sort · tac · tail · tr · uniq · wc · xargs |
| Shell programming | basename · echo · expr · false · printf · test · true · unset |
| Printing: lp · Communications: inetd · netstat · ping · rlogin · nc · traceroute · Searching: find · grep · strings · Miscellaneous: banner · bc · cal · dd · man · size · yes | |
