Intro To 'paste' Command In Linux

2023-10-25 - By Robert Elder

     I use the 'paste' command, to paste columns in a text document.  The example below illustrates how the two files 'alphabetic.txt' and 'numeric.txt' can be combined using the 'paste' command:

cat alphabetic.txt

a
b
c
d
e

cat numeric.txt

1
2
3
4
5

paste alphabetic.txt numeric.txt

a	1
b	2
c	3
d	4
e	5

A Terminal Based Spreadsheet-like Paste Tool

     The 'paste' command could be thought of as a primitive terminal based version of performing a 'paste' operation inside of a spreadsheet program:

A Practical Example

     The paste command allows you paste columns of text at the end of lines in a file.  For the next few examples, we'll make use of the files 'first_names.txt':

First
Tom
Bob
Scott
Alice

     'last_names.txt':

Last
Miller
Kaiden
McKenna
Rene

     'id_numbers.txt':

ID Number
1080621427
9168914220
3131331001
2732213184

     'ages.txt':

Age
38
49
83
55

     You can specify one or more files to the paste command, and the lines in these files will be appended one after another:

paste first_names.txt last_names.txt

First	Last
Tom	Miller
Bob	Kaiden
Scott	McKenna
Alice	Rene

paste first_names.txt last_names.txt id_numbers.txt

First	Last	ID Number
Tom	Miller	1080621427
Bob	Kaiden	9168914220
Scott	McKenna	3131331001
Alice	Rene	2732213184

Specify A Custom Delimiter

     By default, the columns will be delimited by tab characters, but you can use the '-d' flag to specify a different custom delimiter, like a comma:

paste -d ',' first_names.txt last_names.txt id_numbers.txt

First,Last,ID Number
Tom,Miller,1080621427
Bob,Kaiden,9168914220
Scott,McKenna,3131331001
Alice,Rene,2732213184

Pasting Columns In The Middle

     The paste is not capable of directly inserting a column into the middle of existing lines since lines are simply appended in the same order that they are provided to the 'paste' command:

cat all.txt

First	Last	ID Number
Tom	Miller	1080621427
Bob	Kaiden	9168914220
Scott	McKenna	3131331001
Alice	Rene	2732213184

paste all.txt ages.txt

First	Last	ID Number	Age
Tom	Miller	1080621427	38
Bob	Kaiden	9168914220	49
Scott	McKenna	3131331001	83
Alice	Rene	2732213184	55

     However, you can achieve a similar result of 'pasting in the middle' by also leveraging the 'cut' command:

paste <(cut -f 1-2 all.txt) ages.txt <(cut -f 3- all.txt)

First	Last	Age	ID Number
Tom	Miller	38	1080621427
Bob	Kaiden	49	9168914220
Scott	McKenna	83	3131331001
Alice	Rene	55	2732213184

     In the above command, the cut command extracts only columns in the range from one to two, which is then followed by the age column, and then followed by the third until the last column.

     And that's why the 'paste' command is my favourite Linux command.

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