Paste Command Examples in Unix / Linux

Paste command is one of the useful commands in unix or linux operating system. The paste command merges the lines from multiple files. The paste command sequentially writes the corresponding lines from each file separated by a TAB delimiter on the unix terminal.

The syntax of the paste command is

paste [options] files-list

The options of paste command are:

-d : Specify of a list of delimiters.
-s : Paste one file at a time instead of in parallel.
--version : version information
--help : Help about the paste command.

Paste Command Examples:

Create the following three files in your unix or linux servers to practice to practice the examples:

> cat file1
Unix
Linux
Windows

> cat file2
Dedicated server
Virtual server

> cat file3
Hosting
Machine
Operating system

1. Merging files in parallel

By default, the paste command merges the files in parallel. The paste command writes corresponding lines from the files as a tab delimited on the terminal.

> paste file1 file2
Unix    Dedicated server
Linux   Virtual server
Windows

> paste file2 file1
Dedicated server  Unix
Virtual server    Linux
                  Windows

2. Specifying the delimiter

Paste command uses the tab delimiter by default for merging the files. You can change the delimiter to any other character by using the -d option.

> paste -d"|" file1 file2
Unix|Dedicated server
Linux|Virtual server
Windows|

In the above example, pipe delimiter is specified

3. Merging files in sequentially.

You can merge the files in sequentially using the -s option. The paste command reads each file in sequentially. It reads all the lines from a single file and merges all these lines into a single line.

> paste -s file1 file2
Unix    Linux   Windows
Dedicated server        Virtual server

The following example shows how to specify a delimiter for sequential merging of files:

> paste -s -d"," file1 file2
Unix,Linux,Windows
Dedicated server,Virtual server

4. Specifying multiple delimiters.

Multiple delimiters come in handy when you want to merge more than two files with different delimiters. For example I want to merge file1, file2 with pipe delimiter and file2, file3 with comma delimiter. In this case multiple delimiters will be helpful.

> paste -d"|," file1 file2 file3
Unix|Dedicated server,Hosting
Linux|Virtual server,Machine
Windows|,Operating system

5. Combining N consecutive lines

The paste command can also be used to merge N consecutive lines from a file into a single line. The following example merges 2 consecutive lines into a single line

> cat file1 | paste - -
Unix    Linux
Windows