PASTE(1) User Commands PASTE(1)

paste - merge lines of files

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

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

Written by David M. Ihnat and David MacKenzie.

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

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.

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

February 2026 GNU coreutils 9.10