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Subject: |
Re: paste documentation improvement |
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Date: |
Fri, 17 May 2002 17:51:46 -0700 (PDT) |
Hi,
Sorry for the long delay in replying, I didn't notice this e-mail
in my mailbox until today (although I check it regularly).
I just checked the GNU documentation and noticed the deficit you
talk about, 'man paste' in traditionally helpful GNU style refers
one to the 'info' document and that doesn't contain any further
information. It does seem to be a documentation defect to me.
In the meantime there are many sources for UNIX shell & utility
documentation, POSIX 1003.2 is my personal favourite. There is
a copy of it here;
ftp://ftp.mao.kiev.ua/pub/software/docs/posix.1003.2.txt.gz
If you have trouble downloading it I would use something like
www.filesearching.com and search for 'posix' and '1003' to locate
another copy. It's a draft (11.2) and you maybe able to get a more
up to date copy (opengroup.org are offering POSIX1003.1-2001 for
download at the moment).
There are also man pages on-line, SunOS is a good one;
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=paste&apropos=0&manpath=SunOS+5.8&format=ascii
(all one line)
Both documents list the following special character sequences;
\n - newline
\t - tab
\\ - backslash
\0 - nothing
seeyafrom
Laura Fairhead
> The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
> that has been posted to gnu.utils.bug as well. >>>>> "Jim" == Jim Meyering
> <address@hidden> writes: Jim> Dan Jacobson <address@hidden> wrote:
> >> Gee, I sure wish the GNU paste documentation mentioned a little of this.
> >> Wonder where she learned all this. Wasn't from Info.
> >>
> >> From: laura fairhead (address@hidden)
> >> Subject: Re: print line 1 of each file, line 2 of each file...
> >> Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
> >>
> >> On 07 Apr 2002 23:30:53 +0800, Dan Jacobson <address@hidden>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> How do I print
> >>>
> >>> Line 1 of file A
> >>> Line 1 of file B
> >>> Line 1 of file C
> >>>
> >>> Line 2 of file A
> >>> Line 2 of file B
> >>> Line 2 of file C
> >>> ...?
> >>>
> >>> Currently I use
> >>> paste -d X A B C|awk '{gsub("X","\n");print;print ""}'
> >>> but I feel like a jerk.
> >>
> >> You can use the special deliminator \n to make each line
> >> seperated by a newline, then as your last file just use
> >> the NUL device so that an extra newline gets appended;
> >>
> >> paste -d '\n' A B C /dev/null
> >>
> >> Other useful standard special deliminators in the 'paste'
> >> command are \t and \0.
> Jim> Thanks for the suggestion.
> Jim> If you feel like writing that up and sending a patch
> Jim> to coreutils.texi, I'll be happy to accept it.
> Jim> The latest version of coreutils.texi is here:
> Jim> ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/fetish/fileutils-4.1.8.tar.gz I
> don't think you want young Dan writing stuff, training wheels and
> all, especially as all I know about these tools is what I read in your
> Info. address@hidden seems to know the remaining undocumented
> items. I'll CC her.
--
http://jidanni.org/ Taiwan(04)25854780
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