<p>
In the fourth in his series Dann, shows us the benefits of the paste command:
</p>
<p>The paste command merges the lines of two or more files or a file and standard in if a second file is not specified or a "-" is used in place of the second file. Consider the following two files. The first file, test1.txt contains the following lines:</p>
<blockquote><p>a<br/>
one<br/>
three<br/>
cat<br/>
good</p></blockquote>
<p>The second file, test2.txt contains the following lines:</p>
<blockquote><p>tuna<br/>
blue finch<br/>
dogs<br/>
fish<br/>
eats</p></blockquote>
<p>The paste command can be used to paste these two files like so:</p>
<blockquote><p>paste test1.txt test2.txt</p></blockquote>
<p>producing the following output:</p>
<blockquote><p>a &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; tuna<br/>
one &nbsp; &nbsp; blue finch<br/>
three &nbsp; dogs<br/>
cat &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;fish<br/>
good &nbsp; eats</p></blockquote>
<p>Each line in test1.txt has been “pasted” to the corresponding line in test2.txt. 

<p>
<a href="https://www.linuxintheshell.com/2012/04/10/episode-004-paste/">https://www.linuxintheshell.com/2012/04/10/episode-004-paste/</a> for the complete shownotes, including video.
</p>
