paste(1)

NAME

paste - merge lines of files

SYNOPSIS

paste [OPTION]... [FILE]...

DESCRIPTION

Write lines consisting of the sequentially corresponding lines from each FILE, separated by TABs, to standard output. The newline of every line except the line from the last file is replaced with a TAB.

With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

-d, --delimiters=LIST

reuse characters from LIST instead of TABs; backslash escapes are supported

-s, --serial

paste one file at a time instead of in parallel; the newline of every line except the last line in each file is replaced with a TAB

-z, --zero-terminated

line delimiter is NUL, not newline

--help

display this help and exit

--version

output version information and exit

AUTHOR

Written by David M. Ihnat and David MacKenzie.

REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs to: <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>.
Report any translation bugs to: <https://translationproject.org/team/>.
GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/paste>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) paste invocation'