Issue with paste command

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi,

I am facing issue with paste command. It is adding spaces or tab in between.

I have say 3 files with below data

File_1

TH
THI
THIS I

File_2

IS IS 
S IS RE
S

File_3

RECORD 1
CORD 2
IS RECORD 3

Output should be

THIS IS RECORD 1
THIS IS RECORD 2
THIS IS RECORD 3

Initially I used the command -

paste File_1 File_2 File_3 > outfile

This added spaces and tabs.

Then I changed the command to

paste -d '\0' File_1 File_2 File_3 > outfile

This is giving some weird result where data from file 1 is missing also a special character / is coming in between.

Please help in resolving this issue.

Thanks in advance!!!

2

What OS and shell are you using?

When I try your command:

paste -d '\0' File_1 File_2 File_3 > outfile

or:

paste -d '\0\0\n' File_1 File_2 File_3 > outfile

I get the output you said you wanted, except that the 3rd line of the output is:

THIS ISIS RECORD 3

instead of:

THIS IS RECORD 3

And, with the three input files you supplied, this seems to be correct to me.

3

Shouldn't you remove the ASCII zeroes from the result file?

4

No ASCII zeroes are added by the command:

paste -d '\0' File_1 File_2 File_3 > outfile

From the current description of the paste -d option in the standards:

...

When the s option is not specified:
� The <newline> characters in the file specified by the last file operand shall
not be modified.
� The delimiter shall be reset to the first element of list each time a line is
processed from each file.
If a <backslash> character appears in list, it and the character following it shall be
used to represent the following delimiter characters:
\n	<newline>.
\t	<tab>.
\\	<backslash> character.
\0	Empty string (not a null character). If �\0� is immediately followed by the
	character �x�, the character �X�, or any character defined by the LC_CTYPE
	digit keyword (see XBD Chapter 7, on page 135), the results are unspecified.

If any other characters follow the <backslash>, the results are unspecified.

Note also that, at least on some implementations, the seemingly obvious:

paste -d '' File_1 File_2 File_3 > outfile

produces the diagnostic message:

paste: no delimiters specified

and an exit status of 1. (This result is copied from OS X Version 10.10.1.)

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