|
PROLOG | NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OPERANDS | STDIN | INPUT FILES | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS | STDOUT | STDERR | OUTPUT FILES | EXTENDED DESCRIPTION | EXIT STATUS | CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS | APPLICATION USAGE | EXAMPLES | RATIONALE | FUTURE DIRECTIONS | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT |
PASTE(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual PASTE(1P)
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.
paste — merge corresponding or subsequent lines of files
paste [−s] [−d list] file...
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.
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
character 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 element 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
character 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
immediately 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, Chapter 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.
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.
The standard input shall be used only if one or more file operands is
'−'. See the INPUT FILES section.
The input files shall be text files, except that line lengths shall
be unlimited.
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
paste:
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization
variables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions
volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 8.2, Internationalization
Variables 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.
Default.
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>.
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
None.
None.
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 Successful completion.
>0 An error occurred.
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 Section 1.4, Utility Description Defaults.
The following sections are informative.
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
<backslash>-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 recognize 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().
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
None.
None.
Section 1.4, Utility Description Defaults, cut(1p), grep(1p), pr(1p)
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 7, Locale,
Chapter 8, Environment Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax
Guidelines
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 Electrical 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.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2013 PASTE(1P)
Pages that refer to this page: cut(1p)