---
layout: page
author: Agostino Monti
category-page: advanced
category-title: Advanced commands
tags: filie coluns analize
title: paste
---

The <code>paste</code> command 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.<br>
Once involved, <code>paste</code> will read all its file arguments. For each corresponding line,
paste will append the contents of each file at that line to its output along with a tab.
When it has completed its operation for the last file, <code>paste</code> will output a newline
character and move on to the next line.

<pre>
paste [flags] [file1] [file2] ...
</pre>

<h3>Flags</h3>

<ul>
    <li><code>-d</code> delimiters, which specifies a list of delimiters to be used instead of tabs
        for separating consecutive values on a single line. Each delimiter is used in turn;
        when the list has been exhausted, paste begins again at the first delimiter.
<pre>
paste -d "|" file1.txt file2.txt
paste -d "|," file1.txt file2.txt</pre>
    </li>
    <li><code>-s</code>, which causes paste to append the data in serial rather than in parallel;
        that is, in a horizontal rather than vertical fashion.
    </li>
</ul>